A team comprising scientists from Kew Gardens, The Malaria Atlas Project and Engineering Science has been announced as a finalist in the 2014 Google Impact Challenge UK, which will award funding to 10 charitable projects using innovative technology to change the world.

The Department of Engineering Science is working in partnership with Kew Gardens, the Malaria Atlas Project at Oxford University and the Eijkman Oxford Clinical Research Unit in Indonesia. Over the next three years Professor Steve Roberts and his group, from the Department of Engineering Science, will work to create a smartphone app and a range of wearable acoustic detectors to detect the sound of mosquitoes. The group will then equip villagers in rural Indonesia with the novel technology.

Around half the world’s population is exposed to Aedes aegypti, the species of mosquito responsible for transmitting up to 100 million cases of dengue fever each year.  The Malaria Atlas Project will develop new tools to help control their spread. Be a part of this important project by voting for it in Google’s Impact Challenge and helping to secure a £500,000 grant.

Before 30th July please find a moment to vote for the project here:   https://impactchallenge.withgoogle.com/uk2014  and spread the word as much as possible via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook – there will be stiff competition to win the public vote!

The online competition site allows everyone to vote for up to four projects, and the results will be announced on the 31 July.