The James Dyson Award is an international design and engineering competition that challenges students and recent graduates to develop solutions to real-world problems. This year, CDE students were recognised for innovations spanning maternal care, inclusive communication and marine conservation.
Singapore National Winner: mömigo
Created by Nicolette Wong (Industrial Design, ’26), mömigo rethinks breastmilk storage, warming and feeding as one continuous experience.
The project began with an observation of how much work surrounds breastfeeding beyond feeding itself: pumping, storing, warming, washing and planning for outings. Nicolette's conversations with parents and lactation consultants highlighted how existing products often treat these as separate tasks, requiring parents to juggle storage bags, bottles, warmers and repeated milk transfers.
mömigo brings these steps together in a reusable silicone system. Expressed milk can be stored, warmed and fed from the same container without being transferred. It seals into a slim profile for storage, attaches to a warming system within an insulated flask, then slides into a holder with a teat for feeding. The result reduces transfers, washing, spillage and the number of separate parts parents need to manage.
The win is another milestone for mömigo, which was also an inaugural winner of the James Dyson Foundation Innovation & Design Prize this year.
Academic Supervisor: Associate Professor Christophe Gaubert (Design)
National Runner-up: EmotiMate
Created by Xincheng Li (Engineering Design and Innovation, ’26), EmotiMate is an AI-powered communication companion for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Developed through interviews, co-design and feedback from more than 50 users, it turns brief text into context-aware sentences and expressive speech to help communicate emotion, tone and intent, making interactions more expressive and personalised.
Academic Supervisors: Assoc Prof Mark DeLessio (Engineering Design and Innovation Centre), Assoc Prof Ai Poh Loh (Electrical & Computer Engineering), Dr Aleksandar Kostadinov (Engineering Design and Innovation Centre)
National Runner-up: JellyBot
Created by Navin Siva, and Afham Shahril (Electrical Engineering ’26), as well as Darrel Yu and Wallace Wee (Year 4, Electrical Engineering), JellyBot is a jellyfish-inspired soft robot for low-impact coral reef surveillance. Its soft silicone tentacles generate quiet, pulsatile propulsion, offering an alternative to conventional propeller-driven underwater vehicles that can disturb sensitive marine environments. It allows closer observation of coral reefs while minimising physical and acoustic disruption.
JellyBot was also an inaugural James Dyson Foundation Innovation & Design Prize winner.
Academic Supervisors: Assoc Prof Li Hong Idris Lim (PhD, FHEA, SMIEEE) (Engineering Design and Innovation Centre), Dr Wang Yuzhe (SIMTech)
