Arts
Young innovators bag global award with mosquito repellant
It was extremely cold in Slough, England last November when Umendra Abeynayake, Madusha de Silva and Virgin Fernando prepared for their final presentation on the product innovation “Mortein SafeyStick”at the finale of RB Global Challenge 2018.
The trio, third year undergraduates of the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura were determined to prove that Sri Lankan youth had the potential to make a mark internationally. They succeeded -emerging Global Champions.
Winning trio: Madusha de Silva, Virgin Fernando and Umendra Abeynayake
Reckitt Benckiser (RB) a multinational company operating in over 200 countries, has its product portfolio mainly on the health and hygiene sectors. RB Global Challenge is designed to identify young undergraduates from around the world who come up with self- sustaining, innovative ideas related to the company’s products in order to solve the current social problems in their respective member countries.
Madusha, Umendra and Virgin from the departments of Finance, Commerce and Business Economics respectively shared their experiences of the RB Global Challenge 2018 where 18 other countries competed.
At the global competition, the national champions selected from each of the respective countries get together and present their proposals and product or service extensions vying for the top spot.
“Back in October we had to face the national competitions,” Virgin relates how it all started with the national rounds.“There were two selection rounds, one of which was the Business Simulation Game, a 60 minute Q&A game on different business and marketing case studies,” she explains. The team became the National Champions from 106 applicants.
Realising dengue was one of the main health hazards prevailing in the country, they decided to work on the RB brand ‘Mortein’.
“Actually we got to know it’s also a global issue at the final, where 3.9 billion from a 7 billion global population face the risk of contracting dengue,” Madusha said.
‘Mortein SafeyStick’ is a portable mosquito repellent device in the form of a flash drive which can be plugged on to computers, laptops, tabs or mobile phones which extract power from the devices to heat the Mortein chip inside and create the vapour. It’s also a multi-tasking device, which is able to function as a memory card reader.
“We had to prove that our product is financially viable if we implement it in the market in the long run, based on research and consumer insights,” Madusha explains.
The night after the semi-final was crucial for the team. They were to compete with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and China in the Global Final. “We were one of the countries with the least advanced technology compared to the others,” Umendra notes. Yet, they were confident with the final presentation.
“RB Global Challenge was a platform where we practically applied the theories we learned at university,” Umendra says.
Mortein SafeyStick is in the process of being developed into a commercial product and will be available in the market in the future.
Meanwhile the successful trio will be representing Sri Lanka at the One Young World Summit 2019-International Youth Forum for global issues this October.