ReFuel Technologies is centered on producing sustainable chemicals, fuels, and textiles with recovered inputs from PET plastic waste. By generating valuable renewable chemicals and polymers for these markets, ReFuel Technologies will provide sustainable chemical alternatives for companies who have implemented environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies for their operations to address market demand while reducing a critical waste problem facing our society.
University: UC Santa Cruz
Walls to Bridges
Walls to Bridges is a pilot program in partnership with the Conflict Resolution Center of Santa Cruz (CRC) designed to address communication issues between incarcerated parents and their adult-age children in Santa Cruz. Using restorative justice practices and principles, the program will facilitate confidential dialogues regarding the impact of incarceration on relationships and planning for communication resolutions, such as letters, phone calls, and visits. The dialogues will take place between incarcerated parents and their adult-age children within a Santa Cruz County jail. The process focuses on the procedural aspect of healing, like what steps need to be taken to address the harm and reduce the adverse outcomes for families impacted by incarceration. A research aspect will inform for potential expansion with the CRC as well as replication for other restorative justice or criminal justice reform organizations. Walls To Bridges has the potential to inform the public of familial incarceration challenges and help make policy recommendations.
Last Night
Last Night is a workshop and fully developed card game that opens up a space for conversations among college-aged players about how to discern when a sexual situation may not be clearly consensual. The emotional and educational impact of Last Night hinges on shifting the perspective in a story that players help write. Competitive gameplay traditions encourage players to collect cards that construct a narrative about a date they hope was successful, but players learn in a post-play epilogue that their date may have seen their actions differently–sometimes as disrespectful or even hurtful. Last Night and its accompanying workshop form a creative tool to inspire conversations about consent and respectful dating behavior.
Tech+SEAfood
There exists gross demoralizations in the seafood system in the US- 43% of US wild caught seafood is exported, 90% of seafood consumed in the US is imported , 60% of imports being inferior, unstandardized aquaculture, and 30% illegally imported. This project envisions a Tech+SEAfood solution for alternative seafood marketing networks (ASN) to improve efficiency, profitability, communication, and traceability in seafood distribution. Project demand has been researched and vetted with seafood supply chain practitioners. The team aims to improve the timeliness and transparency of supply and demand data as well as improve decision making for mission driven distributors about when, where, and how much seafood should be sold and to whom.
Root Tongue: Sharing Stories of Language Identity and Revival
Root Tongue is an online platform for audience engagement motivated by the stories and issues
raised in Tongues of Heaven, a feature documentary about four young, indigenous women who use personal video cameras to document the challenges of learning their ancestral languages before they go extinct. Their experiences prompt a larger conversation about linguicide and revitalization in Root Tongue, a forum that allows participants to share their perspectives through dialogue as well as uploads of photos, music, writings, and short videos. Users will also be able to access educational and community resources on language preservation. Indigenous people and minority language learners have a keen awareness of the demands and flux of their own communities in the context of other global societies. Root Tongue aims to continually illuminate their visions as they heal, energize, and rethink the personal and local.
Philippine “Labor Beat”
The Philippines is the “social media capital of the world,” but it is also a place where labor violations abound. Philippine “Labor Beat” is a social practice project to support Filipino unionists. Currently, unionists must rely on mainstream or indie media sources to report infractions. Pushing beyond the limitations of these forms of media, Philippine “Labor Beat” uses cell phone cameras, media trainings, and metadata technology to build a social media ecology around workers themselves to empower them to directly document their struggle. The project harnesses the creativity of interactive documentary and the reach of social media. Union institutions will serve as a network, support group, and audience for the project. Philippine “Labor Beat” will create and spread labor news that benefits the Filipino community at large by facilitating worker self-representation, communication, and collaboration in ways that their communities currently lack.
MMS Assisted Reading System
In Malawi, “boys outnumber the girls in school attendance by a 6:1 ratio” even though primary education is free. At the same time, recent Malawian communities have seen mobile phones dramatically increase in usage. This project aims to leverage this technology to help young girls increase their literacy skills. An MMS Assisted Reading System will aid girls in educating themselves through text messages from home by delivering short story interactive lessons. Once the MMS Assisted Reading System is created, the second part of the project will be beta testing with a group on 15 Malawian girls during a three-week trial. Thereinafter, the data and feedback from this trial will serve to improve the system. The creation and trial implementation will help overcome the gender-based barriers that girls face in Malawian communities in attaining a literacy education since the MMS system will provide an alternative delivery of textual, visual, and audio reading content that can also be based on grade level or progress. By addressing the illiteracy issues in this way, young girls will have more chances at succeeding professionally, attaining higher wages, and being able to support their families.
(Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Mobiles for Reading” category)
Remote Cleft Therapy for Young Children through a Mobile Game
Speech therapy is not fun for children. It consists of frequent doctor visits and boring repetitive homework. Outside of the office, the therapist has no idea if the child performs the exercises correctly or at all. Modern speech recognition is capable of accurately detecting speech impediments, and the speed of current mobile devices makes it possible to use this in a game that reacts and responds to speech in real time. A tool like this on a mobile device will motivate children to practice their therapy exercises while also providing critical feedback and information to the therapist about how the child progresses outside of the office. This tool enables speech therapists to continue aiding children remotely, providing better care and enabling organizations to make an even bigger impact in a child’s life.
Low-Cost Utility-Driven Guardian Robot for Older Persons Living Alone
This team’s faculty advisors received CITRIS seed funding this year to investigate the activity patterns of older persons living alone, and simultaneously, the capabilities of various sensors such as cameras, temperature sensor, and a two-way microphone for remote monitoring by family members. The goal of this CITRIS funding is for family members or their surrogates to remotely control a robot system over the Internet when they suspect a problem or are unable to reach their loved ones by phone. The goal of this Big Ideas proposal is to make this system autonomous, enabling the robot to monitor activity by detecting utility pattern anomalies. This will allow the system to identify and indicate potential problems and then alert the family members, while heading towards the location of the last utility activity. This project will use a commercially available vacuum robot, “Roomba,” as the base, allow for two-way communication using a mounted tablet, integrate a thermal camera for health data, and analyze the data for the surrogate to inspect and take the appropriate actions.