A five-member team of industrial engineering students from the College of Engineering were declared winners of the prestigious Unilever Gulf Young Entrepreneur Awards Sustainability Hackathon held earlier this month. The AUS team, comprising the students Adnan Al Sousy, Sayf Hussan, Yousef Saad, Heba Al Himairee, and Dana Jamoukha, received their award at a special ceremony held at the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The winning project comprised a sustainable Sunsilk Shower Pop product that needs no packaging. As a substitute to the plastic shampoo bottle, the product is a 25 ml capsule made of biodegradable algae filled with shampoo. The proposed product eliminates recycling, cuts costs, and most importantly, has a positive impact on the environment as well as on Unilever’s sustainability efforts.

A total of 10 teams, from American University in Dubai, Khalifa University, Shera’a Entrepreneurship, University of Dubai, and University of Wollongong in Dubai, made it to the final round of the competition, with AUS emerging victorious.