Exploring Innovation: The Exciting outcomes of the 2025 Living Lab Student Competition
Holding our annual Living Lab Student Competition, with this year's sponsorship under Global Switch Limited, the Sustainable and Smart Campus (SSC) as a Living Lab attracted more than 40 proposals from creative and motivated students. With such an array of innovative ideas and project ideas, 5 ideation challenge proposals and 5 living lab proposals were selected as the winners.
Entries Wrap Up
With the focus for students to identify specific areas on our campus to think about innovative approaches or implementing new technologies to make our campus more sustainable and smarter, students could pick between two pathways within the competition, either submitting an ideation challenge for just a creative concept or a Living Lab proposal to implement on campus.
Covering a range of topics, from catering, wellness, energy & decarbonisation to biodiversity, the entries were reviewed by a multidisciplinary judging panel, which selected the top 10 shortlisted projects from both pathways.
Living Lab Student Competition Booth Day
Now onto the Booth Day! Shortlisted project teams were invited to participate in a booth day event to elevate their project visibility and boost their votes.
It was a thrilling event to have the shortlisted project teams showcasing their innovative and smart ideas with many passersby astonished by the sheer talent of our students. It was also especially rewarding as staffs from our sponsor, Global Switch Limited, such as Eric Liu Wolfgang Lin, came by to visit on the Living Lab project booth day.
Winners List
After a fierce process of shortlisting, booth exhibition and voting from campus community, the top 5 winners within the Ideation Challenge and Living Lab project was identified.
For the Ideation Challenge, massive congratulations to, 1) Harnessing Atmospheric Humidity as a Renewable Water Source, 2) Kinetic Energy Harvesting for Sustainability, 3)ReUST ReLoved: A Sustainable Marketplace for UST Students, 4) UST Corner and 5) Wash n’ Use.
For the Living Lab Projects, massive congratulations to 1) BeeGreen, 2) Receipt Fly, 3) Restcycle: Promoting campus wellbeing with sustainable hammocks, 4) Smart EcoClean Matrix – Algal Blooms Control Solutions and 5) UST Diner.
This year's Living Lab Student Competition has been truly outstanding. The ingenuity and creativity demonstrated by our students showcase their entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking aimed at enhancing campus sustainability.
A heartfelt thank you to all participants and our industry partners for contributing to this remarkable event!
Stay tuned to our Living Lab Instagram and website for the latest updates and for the announcement for the next round of Living Lab Student Competition.
About The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (https://hkust.edu.hk/) is a world-class research intensive university that focuses on science, technology and business as well as humanities and social science. HKUST offers an international campus, and a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy to nurture well-rounded graduates with global vision, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking. Over 80% of our research work were rated “Internationally excellent” or “world leading” in the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 of Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee. We were ranked 3rd in Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2022, and our graduates were ranked 23rd worldwide and among the best from universities from Asia in Global Employability University Ranking and Survey 2021.
