Jon’s vision for improved third world hygiene
Senior BVC student Jon Cheeseright has been shortlisted to win a national Industrial Cadet Award.
The ceremony will take place at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London next month, followed by a celebration reception at the Savoy Hotel.
Jon’s participation was part of an outreach program run by the Cambridge-based technology company ARM, which saw him spend a week working with other school students from across the region. Here he explains:
“At the start of the week, we were given a presentation by UNICEF, who gave us problems such as how to keep track of refugees and improving access to clean water in slums and then challenged us to find effective solutions. My group’s idea was to attach a light to a tap that would highlight the dirt and grime on people’s hands, which could be used in slums to try and improve hygiene.
“Each of us then became independent ‘investors’ and were able to ‘invest’ up to 750,000 imaginary dollars into other groups, based on which group would do the best when their idea would be bought to market. All groups pitched their ideas, and my group managed to achieve the greatest amounts of investment, which meant we had the most money to develop our product.
“Finally, all the groups presented their business solutions to a group of Arm employees, and everyone else in the program, who rated how likely our idea was to succeed in the real world. In the end, my team’s idea was considered objectively the ‘most likely to succeed in the real world’, which meant that we earned ‘money’ from our ‘business’.
“On top of this, it turned out that I had made the best investments, which meant I made the most ‘money’ from the program, and therefore won!
“Throughout the week, we were given various presentations by employees at ARM, who told us what their role in the company was, and discovered things such as the what the ARM business model is, and generally how awesome ARM is.
“I would like to thank the sustainability team at ARM for giving us all an absolutely amazing experience on the program, and to the company as a whole for inspiring me to go into engineering.”
Simon Humphrey, general manager on the project at ARM explained: “The overarching theme of the programme was ‘technology for good’, demonstrating an empathic understanding of realworld problems being faced by young people.
“All the students are transformed during the week from quiet and reserved individuals to confident and exuberant team members. Jon’s team stood out amongst the others on the 2019 programme. Their UV dirt identifying technology for taps was by far the most innovative of all the solutions developed. Their teamwork was excellent both in terms of how they worked generally and how they managed critical debate with positive outcomes. Their group presentations were outstanding and they were the only team to make money in the virtual financial game that ran through the week.”