Introducing the 2024 Falling Walls Lab Manitoba winners (front row left to right) Anastasia Matsko (3rd Place), Nolan De Leon (1st Place) and Megan Crooks (2nd Place) with jury members (back row left to right) Joelle Foster, North Forge Technology Exchange, Jolen Galaugher, Red River College Polytechnic, Hans Joachim-Wieden Associate Vice President Partnerships, Knowledge Mobilization & Innovation, Andrea Legary, Recoup Group, and Wenlong Yuan, Stu Clark Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Asper School of Business.
Introducing the 2024 Falling Walls Lab Manitoba winners
UM students and early career professionals took the stage at Smartpark to pitch their ideas with the potential to change the world at Falling Walls Lab Manitoba. Each of the twelve contestants had 3-minutes to present their groundbreaking ideas to the jury and a public audience.
Nolan De Leon, 2024 Falling Walls Manitoba winner.
Falling Walls Lab is an international competition, created by the Falling Walls Foundation, inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It promotes research and innovation in all disciplines, by posing the question, “Which walls will fall next?”
Nolan De Leon (Dr.MD, PhD) won the grand prize sponsored by InfoMagnetics Technologies. The prize includes $1000 cash along with airfare and accommodations in Berlin, Germany to compete in the global Falling Walls competition finale Nov. 7 to 9 with their presentation, Breaking the Wall of Prenatal Diagnostics.
Megan Crooks (MA Clinical Psychology) won the second-place prize of $750 sponsored by Research Manitoba, with the presentation entitled, Breaking the Wall of Phantom Pain Prevention.
Anastasia Matsko (Dr.Med/PhD) was the third-place finalist winning $500 sponsored by QDoc Virtual Healthcare with the presentation Breaking the Wall of Dental Implants.
Sajad Saraygord Afshari (PhD, P.Eng, Postdoc), won the Audience Choice award of $500 sponsored by Red River College Polytechnic for the presentation, Breaking the Wall of AI-Powered Drone Work: Revolutionizing Wildfire Prevention.
“The Falling Walls Lab is an important opportunity to showcase the world-class research happening every day in Manitoba and I would like to thank the large community who came together to bring this celebration to life,” said Dr. Hans-Joachim Wieden, Associate Vice-President Partnerships Knowledge Mobilization & Innovation. “Students are the greatest drivers of change in addressing the pressing challenges faced by society and by empowering entrepreneurs and innovators across disciplines we can make these great ideas a reality.”
Congratulations to all the presenters for sharing their exciting research and being a part of this inaugural event:
- Mahdi Zakeri (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Bone Loss & Healing
- Abhinav Tiwari (Agriculture & Food Science): Breaking the Wall of Grain Drying
- Juanita Garcia (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Exercise in Spinal Injury
- Venkata Daggupati (Computing & Information Science): Breaking the Wall of Emergency Room Challenges
- Anastasia Matsko (Engineering & Technology): Breaking the Wall of Dental Implants
- Hussein Agoushi (Architecture & Urban Studies): Breaking the Wall of Community Silence
- Samantha Phrakonkham (Healthcare & Technology): Breaking the Wall of Eye Healthcare
- Sajad Saraygord Afshari (Engineering & Technology): Breaking the Wall of AI-Powered Drone Work: Revolutionizing Wildfire Prevention
- Amir Barzegar Behrooz (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Alzheimer’s Therapy
- Megan Crooks (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Phantom Pain Prevention
- Nolan De Leon (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Prenatal Diagnostics
- Carmine Slipski (Healthcare & Medical Sciences): Breaking the Wall of Oral Health Detection
Research at the University of Manitoba is partially supported by funding from the Government of Canada Research Support Fund.