Canadian Youth Celebrated for Excellence in Innovation

OTTAWA, ON, May 27, 2025 /CNW/ - Young Canadian innovators take centre stage tomorrow as part of Canadian Innovation Week. The honourees, aged 14 to 18, are national winners and finalists of the Rideau Hall Foundation's (RHF) Ingenious+ youth innovation challenge, which provides young innovators with the opportunity to advance their projects through financial support, learning opportunities, and mentorship.

"Now more than ever, we need homegrown solutions to everything from climate disasters to healthcare," says Teresa Marques, President and CEO of the RHF. "Ingenious+ is all about empowering today's young changemakers through wrap-around support that will help them grow their innovations and create positive impact in their communities. We are thrilled to be celebrating these outstanding young people during Canadian Innovation Week."

The RHF will distribute awards to five national winners and eleven national finalists, all of whom moved on to the second stage of the challenge after winning regional awards. The national winners were chosen as the top entry in each of the five Ingenious+ categories: Community and Civic Engagement, Climate Change and the Environment, Equity and Inclusion, Health and Well-being, and Technology and Entrepreneurship. The national finalists were selected as the top entry in their province, regardless of category.

This year's top projects range from point-of-care skin cancer detection software to banana-peel-powered batteries, to a predictive tool for wildfire outbreaks. Together, they receive over $70,000 in funding, in addition to learning and ongoing mentorship opportunities from industry experts. The award ceremony takes place at Carleton University and will be livestreamed at Ingeniousplus.ca on Wednesday, May 28 beginning at 10 a.m. ET.

About the Rideau Hall Foundation
The Rideau Hall Foundation (RHF) is a non–partisan national charity that brings together ideas, people and resources to celebrate what is best about Canada while working with partners to meaningfully improve the lives of Canadians. The RHF celebrates excellence while creating opportunities and connecting communities, all towards the shared purpose of a better Canada. Learn more: www.rhf-frh.ca

National Winners

Warren Chen, National Winner: Naturacell: A Novel Biodegradable Cellulosic-Based Battery Cell
British Columbia, Technology and Entrepreneurship
Naturacell converts cellulosic fibres from agricultural waste into biodegradable batteries, delivering a 1.5V electrochemical performance. Scalable to AA/AAA formats and with potential applications in EVs and electronics, Naturacell offers a sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries—cutting costs and solving disposal challenges. 

Anthony Efthimiadis: M-SCAHN: A Point-of-care Digital Dermoscopy Software System for Rapid Screening of Skin Cancers
Ontario, Health and Wellbeing
M-SCAHN is a point-of-care software tool for fast, accurate, and non-invasive skin cancer screening using computational image analysis. It addresses misdiagnosis, racial bias in AI, and clinical inefficiencies—reducing mortality, unnecessary biopsies, and healthcare costs.

Jasmine Wang: Wildfire Monitoring and Prediction system
Ontario, Climate and the Environment
This innovation addresses the two key bottlenecks of today's wildfire systems through a custom data pipeline designed from the ground up to scale across geolocation, time, and features, and tailored transformer models that deliver a 15% improvement in detection and a 61% boost in prediction recall over existing ML approaches. Additionally, a web app was developed to showcase the practical, real-world application of these models.

Céline Zhang, National Winner: Student Innovation Lab
Quebec, Community and Civic Engagement
This social impact lab empowers marginalized youth by advancing accessibility, education, and civic engagement through scholarships, policy advocacy, and networking opportunities.

Joti Gokaraju, TouchTalk: A Comprehensive Braille Communication Platform for the Deafblind
Saskatchewan, Equity and Inclusion
TouchTalk is a braille-based communication system for the Deafblind. Using a mobile app and a custom device with a refreshable braille display and keyboard, TouchTalk allows for two-way conversation between non-disabled and Deafblind persons.

National Finalists

Sara Agrawal and Rateb Ajamieh, Prints4Play: 3D Printing Waste into Toys
Alberta, Climate Change and the Environment
Prints4Play recycles 3D print waste into usable filament, creating toys for underprivileged children both locally and globally.

Joy Akinkunmi, National Finalist: Pill Smart 2.0
Nova Scotia, Entrepreneurship and Technology
The Pill Smart is an automatic pill dispenser for seniors with mild and moderate dementia completed with an app for a caregiver. With adaptive features, the Pill Smart aims to increase medication adherence in this demographic.

Adaugo Alison-Ukonu, Flo-Oral Hygiene Network Inc.
Saskatchewan, Equity and Inclusion
Flo-Oral is a youth-led initiative focused on ending menstrual and oral hygiene poverty by providing essential items to underserved communities.

Aaron Bai, Ecotrack
British Columbia, Climate Change and the Environment
EcoTrack is an AI-powered app that recognizes bird species, predicts migration patterns, and tracks routes affected by climate change. It also offers a platform for collecting observation data, supporting research, and encouraging wildlife conservation efforts.

Eva Batal, Madeleine Siwick, Jiaqi Sun, and Julia Xing, Communicare
Quebec, Equity and Inclusion
 Communicare is an app that connects people with healthcare professionals in Canada, by breaking down language barriers to improve access to care

Casper Dong, Canada Youth Aerospace Team | Accessible STEM Opportunities For All Canadian Youth
Ontario, Technology and Entrpreneurship
This organization provides mentorship, collaborative projects, and competition opportunities for youth across Canada, advocating for inclusion and access to STEM opportunities in aerospace.

Chinazam Igwe, Youth Innovation and Professional Empowerment
New Brunswick, Equity and Inclusion
This initiative empowers Black high school students through culturally relevant programs helping them be, become and belong with a focus on career development, entrepreneurship and STEM. By working with black professionals and collaborating with various public sector groups it provides hands-on training, resources, and mentorship. 

Olive Passmore and Lilou Lefebvre: AI Powered Early Skin Cancer Detection
Yukon, Health and Wellbeing
AI Powered Skin Cancer Detection is an app that rural healthcare providers would use, in addition to their expertise in medicine, to help identify suspicious lesions on patients. The app would then indicate the likelihood of malignacy, which would then prioritize patients to see specialized doctors from outside of the community and or the territory.

Adam Peters, National Finalist: WindLab MB – Stratos: Manitoba's Educational Wind Tunnel
Manitoba, Climate Change and the Environment
Stratos is a small, affordable educational wind tunnel in Manitoba targeting 60 knots. It enables students to study aerodynamics, including lift, drag, and flow visualization with AI. The project promotes hands-on aerospace learning and supports sustainable design for greener transportation innovation

Owen Whynot, A Flexible Future – Sustaining the North with Flexible solar panels
Northwest Territories, Climate Change and Environment
This innovation develops a cover for flexible solar panels designed to work in cold, uneven terrain. By replacing PET plastic with durable and recyclable ETFE plastic, it increases energy production, lifespan, and sustainability. Reducing costs for northern Canadian communities as well.

Sophia Zhang, Flutter TENG
Newfoundland and Labrador, Climate Change and the Environment
Portable Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Everyday Wind Energy Harvesting TENGs is a portable device that uses power management to harvest wind energy supporting the transition to a greener future.

SOURCE Rideau Hall Foundation

For interview requests and further information: Mélanie Béchard, Senior Communications Officer, Rideau Hall Foundation, 613-914-0651, [email protected]