Nigerian team makes Airbus global ‘Fly Your Ideas 2017’

Nigeria’s “Team Nevada”, has been shortlisted by Airbus for the final round of its 2017 global Fly Your Ideas student challenge. The winners, who will be announced at a special event in Toulouse, France on 17 May, will walk away with the EUR30,000 prize.

The Lagos-based team, from Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University and Bells University, is led by 18 year old Biochemistry student, Anyaegbuna Kosisochukwu. His team-mates are 25 year old Mechanical Engineering student, George Okereka and Obianom Ekenedirichukwu who is 19 and studying Electrical Electronics Engineering.

Their entry proposes a novel system using electronic sensors and mathematical algorithms to automatically control aircraft on the ground when they are maneuvering around airports. This solution has the potential to significantly improve traffic flow at airports and reduce harmful emissions.

“We were motivated by the worst accident in aviation history (at Tenerife airport, March 1977), which occurred on the ground, and we were inspired by the precision of self-driving cars in close-range driving. Together with my team-mates, we have developed an automated taxiing system which offers maximum efficiency without compromising safety,” explained Kosisochukwu.

“We looked at how the new driver-less technology works and thought ‘why can’t we import something similar, but different for airplanes, that removes the human factor that causes about 90% of taxiing accidents?” added Okereka.

Kosisochukwu first heard about the biennial Fly Your Ideas competition when he was at high school, but had to wait until this year, when he became a university student, to assemble a team with a competitive entry.

“Making it to the finals is such an achievement on its own, it means that all the hard work paid off. It also taught us not to underestimate ourselves and at the very least we made it till here” said Obianom.

The Nigerian entry is competing against rival teams’ entries from the UK, France, Hong Kong and Australia. More than 350 entries were received for the 2017 Fly Your Ideas competition, which Airbus runs in partnership with UNESCO.

Representing nine different nationalities and eight universities across Africa, Europe and Asia-Pacific, the five finalist teams embody true diversity, which is a key driver of innovation and performance. The students, competing for a €30,000 prize, also demonstrate a wide variety of disciplines from Natural Sciences to Engineering and Business.

Their inventive ideas were selected from over 350 entries in Airbus’ biennial global student competition, run in partnership with UNESCO. Students’ ideas had to answer one of five challenges identified by Airbus to provide sustainable future solutions. The innovations proposed by the five finalist teams look at alternative business models, passengers’ experience and flight operations.

The five finalist teams – from Australia, France, Hong Kong, Nigeria and the UK – will soon travel to Toulouse, France, where they will spend a week at the Airbus ProtoSpace facility to prototype, test and visualise their ideas using state-of-the-art equipment with personal guidance from Airbus. At the end of their week at Airbus, the students will present their innovative projects and the newly developed prototype in front of Airbus experts and personalities from the aerospace and academic world.