Egerton Students Feature Award Winning Hyacinth Project at the World Engineering Day Hackathon Finals

Two Egerton University students from the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Joseph Nguthiru and Charles Kinyua, have been invited to present their award winning project at the World Engineering Day on March 4^th this year.

Their project was one among the only nine that made to the final from more than 120 entries across the world. The final year students from the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering join an elite group from 6 other countries and 8 universities across the globe that have made it through into the World Engineering Hackathon finals.

"We started our project as our final year engineering project late last year. In this project, we are converting water hyacinth into biodegradable alternatives to single use plastic products, including party plates, and conventional seedling wrappers. By doing so, we reduce plastic waste pollution, and eliminate water hyacinth," Joseph Nguthiru said.

"We got the idea after we got stuck in water hyacinth in Lake Naivasha together with our classmates during a class trip after our boat was hemmed in by the weed. Since then, we started looking for solutions to the invasive aquatic weed that would also benefit local communities," Charles Kinyua said.

Im addition to the current feat, the team were also awarded the East Africa Youth for Climate Action Award by IGAD last year for their innovation.

"We would like to thank our project supervisor, Eng James Maati, our Chair of Department, Eng Nancy Matheri, and the whole fraternity of Egerton University for the help we have had in developing this," the duo said.

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