2025 Winners
Well done to our 2025 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Winners
- Jack Harker & Cameron Moore!
A massive congratulations to Jack Harker from Auckland and Cameron Moore from Rotorua for being awarded first-place winners in their respective age group categories for Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2025.
Sail Race Tracker
First place in the year 7-10 category was awarded to Jack Harker from ACG Parnell College in Auckland. He developed a low cost live race tracking system for youth sailing. The system uses long range radio devices and a web dashboard so coaches can replay races for analysis and spectators can follow fleets in real time.
"Jack's project really stood out because he had a clear problem he wanted to solve, and came up with a working solution. By combining low-cost GPS technology and a cloud dashboard, he has created an affordable, scalable way for coaches to offer deeper learning experiences, and for families to follow races in real time. He did the legwork with stakeholders and field trials, and in a nation obsessed with sailing, the prototype already delivers real value for youth programmes," says Dr Siouxsie Wiles.
Air Brace
First place in the year 11-13 category was awarded to Cameron Moore from Rotorua Lakes High School. His Air Brace prototype is an inflatable neck brace for mountain biking. It uses motion detection to deploy only in a crash, limiting neck movement to help prevent serious spinal injury while remaining comfortable to wear. Cameron is the first double winner in the competition, having taken out the junior category two years ago.
"Cameron's Air Brace tackles a big safety issue in a simple way. It senses a crash and quickly inflates to hold the neck steady, while staying comfortable to wear. As he focuses on speeding up the reaction time and refining how quickly the device inflates, this has real potential to reduce severe neck injuries in mountain biking and other high risk sports," says Dr Joel Rindelaub.
Also, a special acknowledgement to our second place winners.
Second place in the year 7-10 category was awarded to Luke Huang from Northcross Intermediate School in Auckland. His Smart Sort scanner uses invisible light to check what kind of plastic an item is and tells people if it's recyclable or not, helping cut contamination and keep more plastics out of landfill.
Second place in the year 11-13 category was awarded to Jesse Rumball Smith from Wellington College. His Building a Better Backseat Driver project turns a smartphone into an AI co pilot that detects hazards and driver fatigue. This prototype uses computer vision and audio to make road safety more accessible.
Finally, the judges awarded one highly commended award this year to Gabriel Anthony from Whitby Collegiate in Wellington for his Pill AI project.
Congratulations to this year's winners! We can't wait to see what 2026 brings!
