"Enabling Parkinson's Patients to Type"…Winners of the International Dyson Award Announced

AI-Based Water Quality Monitor "WaterSense"
Smart Keyboard "OnCue" for Parkinson's Patients
Each Winner Receives ?30,000 Prize

The final winners of the international student engineering and design competition, "The James Dyson Award 2025," were announced on November 5. This year, more than 2,100 ideas were submitted from 28 countries, and two teams were selected as the ultimate winners in the International Sustainability and Medical categories.

In the Sustainability category, "WaterSense," an automatic water quality monitoring device that detects the quality of rivers and lakes in real time and predicts pollution using artificial intelligence (AI) analysis, took the top prize. In the Medical category, the smart keyboard "OnCue," designed to help Parkinson's disease patients reduce typing errors and enter text more steadily, was named the winner. Each of the two winning teams will receive a prize of 30,000 pounds (approximately 50 million won).

OnCue, the winner of the medical category at the James Dyson Award 2025 International Competition. Dyson.

James Dyson, founder of Dyson, stated, "The James Dyson Award supports young inventors who look at the world from a different perspective and strive to solve real-world problems," adding, "The 2025 James Dyson Award winners, Filip and Alessandra, have truly embodied this spirit, solving challenging issues in health and the environment in practical and creative ways." He continued, "I hope this award will serve as a stepping stone for the commercialization of their inventions."

WaterSense is an AI-based automatic water quality monitoring device developed by Filip Budny, a doctoral student in nanotechnology. Approximately 40% of the world's bodies of water are seriously polluted, and rivers and lakes are particularly exposed to contaminants such as agricultural runoff and industrial wastewater. However, in many countries, water quality testing remains limited and outdated, resulting in a lack of crucial data.

To address these inefficient water quality testing methods, Filip devised "WaterSense," an AI-powered real-time water quality measurement system. This device is equipped with a hydropower generator, allowing it to operate solely on the flow of water, and uses recyclable paper sensors to measure more than 20 key water quality indicators, including pH, dissolved oxygen, and chloride. The platform analyzes water quality information and learns from past data and patterns to predict the likelihood of pollution up to 72 hours in advance. The data is made available to local communities and governments, supporting prompt water management and the protection of aquatic ecosystems.

James Dyson Award 2025 International Sustainability Category Winner 'WaterSense'. Dyson.

WaterSense is currently undergoing pilot operations in 20 regions across Poland. Filip commented, "Winning this award has reinforced my conviction to continue striving to create a system that allows anyone to easily measure, predict, and access clean water," and added, "I plan to use the prize money to commercialize the technology, expand cooperation with environmental agencies and research partners across Europe, and, in the long term, build a system to monitor river water quality in real time worldwide."

OnCue is an affordable smart keyboard and wristband developed by Alessandra Galli, a master's student in integrated product design, to address the typing difficulties faced by Parkinson's disease patients. Existing assistive keyboards for Parkinson's patients feature larger buttons, strong color contrasts, and split layouts, but they have limitations in fundamentally addressing the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

To overcome these limitations, OnCue delivers gentle vibrations through the keyboard and wristband each time a key is pressed, helping users type at a steady rhythm. If a user holds a key for too long, the vibration from the keyboard and wristband gradually intensifies, signaling that it's time to move to the next key. In addition, AI predicts the next letter and displays it with lighting on the keyboard, providing visual guidance to prevent typing errors. The split design, inspired by gaming keyboards, reduces strain on the hands and arms, and the raised sides of the keys are designed to minimize mistakes.

Alessandra designed the product so that users can finely adjust the vibration intensity and lighting response, considering the varying movements of Parkinson's disease depending on symptom severity and time of day. She plans to further enhance the product by incorporating feedback from healthcare professionals and Parkinson's patients, and to add custom vibration pattern software for different symptoms, expanding its application to patients with other neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Alessandra said, "Winning the James Dyson Award International Competition was a meaningful milestone that confirmed my decision to dedicate myself to this project after graduation was the right one," and added, "I will use the prize money to further develop the product into something that provides real help to Parkinson's disease patients."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.