Automated study tool sees USA duo win Red Bull Basement Global Final

Global student innovators gather in Istanbul to showcase ingenious ideas.

Arizona State University students Brinlee Kidd and Sylvia Lopez took top honours at the postponed Red Bull Basement Global Final 2021 with their ingenious idea for an automated study tool as student innovators from all around the world gathered in Istanbul. Here is all you need to know:

– Following events in Berlin (2018) and Toronto (2019), and a virtual Global Workshop in 2020, the Red Bull Basement Global Final in Istanbul was highly anticipated, especially due to the postponement.

– Former winners currently realising their ideas are Audvice in 2019, who received six-figure funding in the first investment round for their learning and collaboration tool, and 2020 winners Lylo who are bringing their ecologically friendly reinvention of the washing machine to market.

– Offering inspiration and insights from game-changing thought leaders and expert mentors, the latest collaborative event in Turkey was the culmination of eight months of work by student teams whose ideas to drive positive change had been selected from more than 4,000.

– The American duo made the biggest impression with their “Jotted” idea as 44 finalist teams from 43 countries – the majority attending in person with others participating virtually – worked for months to bring ideas to life, supported with workspace access and crucial advice from mentors.

– The event in Istanbul was an immersive experience that allowed the teams to network and engage in workshops with visionary thought leaders including a Q&A session featuring Kudzi Chikumbu who is leader in community and creators at one of the world’s biggest entertainment short-form video platforms, a workshop on digital storytelling with SuperSocial founder Mathias Haas and a surprise freerunning and parkour workshop with inspirational Turkish freerunning athlete Hazal Nehir.

– It concluded with the top 10 teams making their final pitch to a judging panel of global visionaries, and the winning “Jotted” idea made a deep impression as the automated, real-time note-taking tool that generates flashcards, creates practice quizzes and more will help revolutionise the way that people around the world find and aggregate knowledge.

– When Kidd and Lopez first mentioned the programme to their advisor at Arizona State, they thought he would recommend it to more experienced students. Instead, he suggested that they give it a try themselves with the talented pair now targeting 10,000 users in about five months.

– Kidd and Lopez said: “Everybody wins when you come here. The people we’ve met are some of the best and brightest in the world – so exciting and interesting and active. With the things that we learned, from the business point of view and the technical perspective, we feel so much more confident moving forward. We’re turning a new page in an incredible book and we’re excited to go on this journey.”

– Rounding out the top 10 were: Circle One (IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems), a reusable packaging solution for online retail orders; Digital X-Ray Glasses (University of Johannesburg), eyeglasses that perform and transmit x-ray scans; H2Whoah (University of Manitoba), a consumer app that monitors water usage; NCMS (Mie University), a new take on noise-cancelling headphones; OpenGrid (University of Melbourne), a platform that would enable households using solar power to sell their excess energy to other homes; Smart Capacit System (Hotelschool The Hague), an energy-saving scheduling system for digital devices; Starry Light Tiles (Loughborough University), walkway tiles that light up pedestrian pathways when stepped upon; Vego (University of A Coruña), an app that helps users transition to a vegan lifestyle; and Wrest (Third Faculty of Medicine at Charles University), a smart mousepad designed to help users avert repetitive motion injuries.

– Most ideas centered on categories based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with the top three areas of focus being Education like “Jotted”, Smart Cities and Body & Mind.

– The keynote speaker was Sam Jones, founder of the innovative Gener8 web browser, whose appearance on the UK version of Dragons’ Den went viral and was dubbed by media as the “best pitch ever”.

– Jones, who was also a global judge, revealed: “I would have loved to have been able to have an experience like Red Bull Basement when I started Gener8. Everyone is getting the chance to learn from amazing speakers, to meet other entrepreneurs with new ideas, and to build their network. So whether you win or you don’t, everyone has the opportunity to learn a lot and to have an amazing time.”

– Other judges included Kudzi Chikumbu, Marcus Kennedy (general manager for the Gaming and eSports Segment at Intel), Manjula Lee (founder/CEO of World Wide Generation and the G17Eco Platform) and Ceri McCall (senior vice president of Marketing Operations at NTT Ltd.).

– Lee enthused: “The generation that’s going to change the world is this millennial Gen Z. I love the fact that they’re now surrounded with an ecosystem of people and experts who can inspire them.”