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Fly Your Ideas

Challenging students to transform the world of aerospace

Fly Your Ideas is a biennial competition that offers students from around the world the opportunity to apply their classroom learning and research to solving real-world challenges. Since 2008, more than 22,000 students – from over 700 universities in more than 100 countries worldwide – have registered to participate.

Objectives

Designed by Airbus in partnership with UNESCO, Fly Your Ideas encourages students worldwide to activate their pioneering spirit and innovate for the future of aerospace. With support from Airbus, teams tackle global challenges by harnessing the latest digital tools and technologies to create a safer, cleaner and better-connected world.

How it works

Fly Your Ideas involves a series of competitive rounds:

Round 1: Ideation
Round 2: Idea development and mentoring
Round 3: Live final

Up to six finalist teams are selected to progress to Round 3, during which they develop and prototype their projects, then present them to an expert jury at the live final.

Challenges

Fly Your Ideas invites students worldwide to submit proposals to tackle genuine aerospace challenges. For the 2019 Fly Your Ideas competition, students were invited to submit proposals in the following areas:

Electrification: How can we fly farther, longer and cleaner by developing embedded electrical energy systems?
Data services: What innovative applications and services can you create based on Airbus data?
Cyber security: How can we securely and seamlessly authenticate travellers while minimising the impact on passengers, airport security and airlines?
Internet of Things: How can this revolutionise the passenger experience or improve collaboration in the aerospace industry?
Artificial Intelligence: In the future of aerospace or industrial manufacturing, how can we use AI to identify opportunities or entirely new business models?
Mixed Reality: How can the aerospace industry put Apple and Google’s mass market Mixed Reality apps to work?

Airbus Fly Your Ideas 2019 competition

A group photo of Team “Zero” Heroes from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, winners of Airbus’ Fly Your Ideas student competition for 2019.

Team “Zero” Heroes from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands won the Airbus Fly Your Ideas 2019 student competition with its smart battery-free wireless switches for aircraft systems providing power-at-the-fingertips.

For the Fly Your Ideas 2019 competition, Team “Zero” Heroes from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands was selected as the winner. This team’s concept involved smart battery-free wireless switches for aircraft systems that provide power-at-the-fingertips.

The runner-up was team AirFish from the University of Cambridge in the UK, proposing the idea of an ocean monitoring system that uses satellite imagery and video imaging technology to help combat illegal fishing, reduce bycatch of endangered species and decrease damages to the marine habitat.

The seven finalist teams in the 2019 challenge spent a week in Toulouse, France, prototyping their ideas in Airbus' cutting-edge Innovation and R&D facilities with support from company mentors and experts, using state-of-the-art equipment. On 27 June, the competitors presented their projects to a panel of Airbus aerospace and academic experts, as well as a global live-stream audience.