Top prize for idea to reduce pollution from world's shipping industry

A team of students from the University of Oxford has won a competition to find new ways of solving climate change using artificial intelligence (AI).

Willem Bonnaffé, a DPhil student in the Department of Zoology, was part of the winning team who have created an AI tool to predict more accurately the arrival time of ships into port, cutting carbon emissions and saving fuel.

The competition, run as part of the AI Impact weekend hosted by the Oxford Foundry, saw 24 teams of students compete against each other in a 36 hour long hackathon.

Willem, whose specific role was to design and implement the AI algorithm, said: "It was an inspiring experience to see what an army of 100 students could achieve in only 36 hours - this made me very hopeful for our future. I also realised that even if we need science to tackle climate change, solutions have to be made attractive to investors, hence the need for stronger ties between science and entrepreneurship."

With their cash prize of £6,000, the team plan to develop their idea further and into a startup through the Oxford Incubator.

For more on the project, visit here.