Meet The Winners Of The 2nd Annual New York City "10 Under 20: Young Innovators to Watch" Awards

NEW YORK, June 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CE Week, New York City's largest consumer electronics (CE) and technology event, announces today the winners of the 2^nd annual "10 Under 20: Young Innovators to Watch" award competition.  This year, there is a whole new line-up of amazing projects all created by NYC high school and college students, all under the age of 20.  These 10 students (and student groups) not only significantly represent the future of NYC, but also the future of this country.  The 10 Under 20 award recipients will be honored for their outstanding achievements at a special awards presentation at CE Week on June 23, 2016.

The 10 Under 20 competition recognizes students who are already changing the technological landscape with projects that undoubtedly demonstrate exceptional creativity, user design, scalability and civic mindedness.  At the forefront of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) innovation, the winners' projects include everything from a robotic maid to a new way to study visual processing, from a fun educational app to an automatic pill dispenser. These students are also tackling real issues in today's society, such as police brutality, care for our aging population and gender equality in the hacking space. 

Robin Raskin, the program's creator says, "We are so excited to have brought this award competition back for a second year and to honor another batch of brilliant students." She emphasizes, "It is so important that we devote time and energy in supporting programs like these and making STEAM education a priority in schools today.  These students and their projects are proof of STEAM education paying off." 

Proudly presenting the 2016 10 Under 20 Award Recipients:

• Adam Abbas, 15, Stuyvesant High School, Manhattan, "Kinet-X": A new four-week STEM education program for students with curriculum broken up into Training, Education and a final project. In Training, students choose to learn about physical engineering or programming. In Education, they learn about their chosen field, supplemented with guest speakers and field trips. Lastly, they take what they have learned and apply it to their final project.
  
  
• Simone Braunstein, 18, The Dalton School, Manhattan, "A Novel Haptic Actuator for Robotic Surgery": A novel robotic surgical controller, which is the only robotic gripper prototype to offer a surgeon the intuitive ability to remotely grasp an object and receive accurate touch feedback.
  
  
• Sharon Chen, 18, Columbia University, Manhattan, "Kofiko Software": A Matlab program that helps analyze and track visual processing in a monkey's brain. Using two touch interfaces, one for the researcher and one for the monkey, the monkey is trained to answer sets of visual questions. If the monkey's answer is correct, it receives a reward. The software can keep track of right and wrong answers as well as the hand and eye movements of the monkeys.
  
  
• Sakura Davis, 17, The Brearley School, Manhattan, "Prosthetic Hand": A 3D-printed prosthetic hand that is controlled by glove gestures as opposed to a program. Using flex sensors, when a person bends their fingers inside the glove, the prosthetic hand will bend corresponding fingers by a proportional amount.
  
  
• Zachary Espiritu, 16, Regis High School, Manhattan, "Math Battle": An iOS game where two players go head-to-head in a battle to solve math-based puzzles faster than the other player. Users can either play in person on the same device or in an online multiplayer mode. In each battle, players compete to solve five generated puzzles and whoever solves the most wins. The game generates new puzzles every time, resulting in endless battles.
  
  
• Micah Green, 19, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, "Maidbot": Think Roomba, but better. Rosie the Maidbot was created to assist hotel room attendant staff. With her internal memory, which consists of hotel and room specific maps, she is able to clean more efficiently and provide valuable data to the hotel such as "how many rooms are being cleaned?" and "how quickly?"
  
  
• Md Haque, 17, Bronx Academy for Software Engineering, Bronx, "Protect & Swerve": A website and app where users can record and upload videos of police misconduct in real time. Incidents in the videos are geo-tagged and plotted on a map, allowing others to see them publically and comment if they wish. The platform aims not only to engage the community of users with content, but also inform them about the necessary steps to take action against the responsible police personnel.
  
  
• Sharon Lin, 17, Stuyvesant High School, Manhattan, "StuyHacks": Produces student-run, inclusive high school hackathons in downtown Manhattan intended for teens and pre-teens interested in STEM and technology. Providing a platform and safe space to experiment and create outside of school, StuyHacks already hosted its first hackathon, which lasted 12-24 hours. The group strives to ensure equal gender representation and reach individuals from various socioeconomic backgrounds.
  
  
• Jason Huishen Lu, 18, Francis Lewis High School, Queens, "PillDrops": A personalized, affordable IoT platform for pill-taking automation at home, the device is built to make the pill management process easier and more efficient. The individual or caretaker pours each type of pill into a different slot, then inputs each prescription name and schedule via a mobile application. The app searches through its database to make sure there are no dangerous drug combinations. When it is time for the patient to take a certain pill, an alarm will notify the individual and automatically dispense the correct amount.
  
  
• Emma Yang, 12, The Brearley School, Manhattan, "Timeless": Aimed at patients with Alzheimer's Disease, Timeless is a first-of-its-kind, easy-to-use and accessible app that helps patients remember and recognize their friends and family to stay updated on their activities. Thanks to AI-based facial recognition software, uploaded photos and names of friends and family allows the app to recognize who the patient is interacting with. Also, the patient can call and text through the app and will be notified if they repeatedly contact a person with the same message.

Award recipients will each be given a $1,000 scholarship provided by Asurion and Lenovo, a Yoga Tab 3 8 provided by Lenovo, a pair of ClarityHD On-Ear Headphones provided by Monster, a HotShot Portable Bluetooth Speaker provided by Monster, a $100 B&H Photo gift card, a MP robot provided by WowWee, a high style bag from STM, and a 10 Under 20 engraved trophy.

The 10 Under 20 Awards Presentation takes place on Thursday, June 23^rd from 4 to 5 p.m. EST at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City (125 W. 18^th Street between 6^th and 7^th Avenues).

Members of the media, government officials and educators are welcome to attend. To RSVP, contact Emily Mason at [email protected] or 646-484-4575.

Winners were chosen by a panel of esteemed judges, which included educators and technology experts:

• Warren Buckleitner, CEO, Children's Technology Review
• Brian Cohen, Chairman of the Board of Directors, New York Angels
• Mamadou Diallo, 2015 10 Under 20 Recipient, "The Young Hackers"
• Kerry Goldstein, Producer, TransformingEDU
• Alyssa Kapasi, 2015 10 Under 20 Recipient, "The Brearley-Chapin DoubleX 2015 Robot"
• Diane Levitt, Senior Director, K-12 education, Cornell Tech
• Frank Migliorelli, Director of Digital Experience, New York Public Library
• Surendra Persaud, 2015 10 Under 20 Recipient, "The Young Hackers"
• Ayelet Segal, Head of Education, TouchCast
• Kristen Titus, Founding Director, NYC Tech Talent Pipeline

About CE Week
CE Week is the consumer electronics (CE) industry's official weeklong, citywide event in New York City. The official mid-year meeting, conference and new technology showcase includes the event headquarters, CE Week Exhibits, which is the site of CE Week's largest exhibition hall and conference program. CE Week is produced annually by the Consumer Technology Group of NAPCO Media, publisher of Dealerscope and Technology Integrator magazines, and producer of FutureVision. For more information, visit www.ceweekny.com and keep up with our latest news on Facebook and Twitter.

Media Contacts:

Linda Krebs               
LKPR, Inc. for 10 Under 20                                         
646-484-4539/ 646-824-5186 (mobile)                     
[email protected]   

Jayme Schwartz                     
social4media for CE Week                     
646-370-3988                              
[email protected]

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