Innovation Reimagined
Story by Alanna Bailey, a senior pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a SOM student marketing assistant.
After more than decade, the UAF Arctic Innovation Competition underwent major changes this year. AIC 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic, which also led to the event being moved from the fall to the spring, a change that is here to stay. As spring 2021 approached and large gatherings remained unsafe, innovation was needed to safely host the competition.
AIC went from a one-day, eight-hour event hosted in person to a multi-day virtual event, with four evenings of semifinals and a 90-minute finals and award ceremony. All AIC events were live-streamed and recorded, allowing friends and family around the world to share in the excitement. The virtual platform also made it even easier for people from across the state to participate.
Despite all the changes, the competitors and their ideas were top notch, and after two years without an AIC, many people were eager to submit ideas.
Family Fun
AIC is open to all ages, and that means family members often work together — parents and their kids, siblings, and even people who enter after seeing a family member compete in the past. This creates a supportive and fun learning environment, where family members can work together to improve their ideas and presentations.
Joining from Nome, the Walrath family entered three ideas, two of which made it to the semifinals. Doug, the father, entered his idea, , in the main division, where he received an honorable mention. His kids, Denali and Dylan, won second place in the cub division with their idea, Easy Stop Sled, which also won the Fan Favorite award for their division. When family members compete, it gives them a chance to be more involved, as they support each other while preparing, participating and potentially winning.
“It was fun,” Denali stated.“Because we helped each other,” Dylan interjected. “We were all nervous before our presentations,” Denali continued, “but we supported one another because we weren’t doing it by ourselves. Working together as a family and having fun helped ease our nerves.”
“I could see the kids gaining confidence as they worked through their semifinal script,” said Doug. “Each mistake was a learning experience, and it was so awesome to see their progress. They’ve gained confidence for future entrepreneurial experiences and speak of continuing to college because of this experience.”
Watching family members compete offers a chance to see how an older sibling or parent gets it done. It can also spark competition and encourage participants to succeed. Danika Dawley, the 2021 junior division winner, watched her brother, Jacob, compete in 2019 and receive an honorable mention for his idea, .
“Since I had seen what the competition was like in the past, I knew what I was preparing for,” Danika said. “It pushed me to be more thorough, since I am competitive and wanted to place higher than my brother.”
AIC has become a family activity and offers an outlet to inspire creative thinking. As AIC moves into its second decade, families are embracing the experience of having fun together as they develop ideas and possibly even compete against each other!
Try and Try Again
Many people submit ideas to AIC year after year. In fact, almost 25% of this year's ideas came from past competitors. Much like watching family members participate, participating more than once is beneficial because each competition is a chance to gain experience and learn how to improve next time. Those competitors receiving top honors in each division are required to sit out a year before competing again. All other competitors are encouraged to keep entering as long as they submit new ideas.
Sometimes that’s what it takes to win big! This was not the first competition for the 2021 main division winner, UAF electrical engineering graduate student Thimira Thilakarathna. Although his Small-Scale Barley Threshing and Winnowing Machine won the top prize this year, the idea he submitted in 2019 didn’t even make it to the semifinals. Entering multiple times gave him the experience needed to succeed.
“I knew about the Arctic Innovation Competition in my first semester at UAF, and I entered an idea that did not make it past preliminary selection,” said Thimira. “I'm always trying to think a little bit differently and experiment in different ways, and was excited to enter my idea this year.”
Competitors are also welcome to enter multiple ideas in the same year. Robert Werner entered two ideas in the main division of this year’s competition. His Toast Test for COVID Aerosol Modeling received both an honorable mention and the COVID Kicker award. His other idea, Fuel Alert, received third place. The video below demonstrates Robert's Fuel Alert prototype.
Robert also entered an idea in 2019, and received an honorable mention for . Having entered AIC and received awards three times, he clearly has a knack for thinking creatively and solving everyday problems.
“I have little ego, which helps me winnow poorly performing ideas from better ones without feeling critical about myself,” said Robert. “My designs fail constantly and require tons of work to make them practical.”
Essentially, having ideas that don’t work out or need major changes is no reason to stop trying. The best ideas often come after many failures.
Grand Prize Winners
Over $40,000 in cash and prizes was given out to this year's competitors. In the main division, the top prize of $10,000 was awarded to Thimira Thilakarathna, who also won the main division Fan Favorite award. His winning idea, Small Scale Barley Threshing and Winnowing Machine, is a blender-sized machine that threshes and winnows barley. This provides an option for people who want to grow barley on a small scale but have struggled with the difficult process of threshing by hand.
The junior division winner, Danika Dawley, received $1,000 for her winning idea. Danika’s Back-Up Buoy can be attached to the rope of any fishing gear left underwater, such as shrimp or crab traps, so that the gear can be retrieved even if it is severed from the main buoy. If the main buoy sinks, the backup buoy will activate and float to the surface, saving money for the fisher and protecting the sea life that gets stuck in sunken nets.
In the cub division, Johnathan Verhagen was awarded $500. His idea, Air Drone Filtr, cleans the air of pollutants, chemicals, toxins and dust using an ionizer and a HEPA filter. This idea would be useful in places like the Interior where the air quality gets unhealthy during the winter.
The prize money awarded to AIC competitors is provided by donors, which are primarily 91ĘÓƵ businesses. In addition to our presenting sponsor, Usibelli Coal Mine, and our , we welcomed three new donors this year: 91ĘÓƵ 529, GCI and Mt. McKinley Bank. A complete list of all 2021 winners is available on the .