Pocklington School student to make a difference with innovative tech idea

Pocklington School's Upper Sixth Form student, Henry Hudson, is celebrating his recent success in the national and highly prestigious competition, Solve For Tomorrow, run by Samsung UK. Henry’s tech idea, which aims to help people who are homeless, won third place in the competition, as well as a significant cash prize and ongoing mentorship from Samsung.

The competition is designed to encourage young tech innovators to come up with game-changing solutions to societal issues. Henry spent most of last summer developing his winning idea, which focuses on helping homeless individuals in a society that relies on electronic payments and was inspired by his own experiences of not being able to give money to homeless people because he didn't have cash and had concerns about where the money would go. Henry's idea is to create an app that allows for contactless donations to homeless people within a certain proximity. The donation can be anonymous or not, and 100% of the donation goes directly to the recipient. To ensure the money is spent wisely, certain restrictions are in place. Homeless people wear a smart wristband and can check their balance at various checkpoints set up in shop windows.

His ingenuity impressed the competition judges, who shortlisted him from a pool of 680 applicants. Following that, Henry spent six months working with a Samsung mentor to perfect his project before finally being selected as one of ten finalists who were invited to present a virtual pitch to Samsung judges.

Despite having to juggle his competition preparation with A level exams, Henry rose to the occasion and gave an excellent pitch that secured him third place in the final awards ceremony at Samsung’s London headquarters, where he was thrilled to receive his cash prize and ongoing mentorship with the company to help develop his idea even further.

Chris Charles, Head of Digital Learning and Subject Lead of Computer Science at Pocklington School, praised Henry: “For Henry, this recognition is a fantastic achievement that hopefully will encourage other young people to get involved in developing solutions for real-world problems. With ongoing support from Samsung, he now has the opportunity to take his idea from concept to reality and make a real difference in the lives of people who are homeless.”

Commenting on his achievement, Henry said: "Samsung provided an excellent environment where I could work and talk with some of the leading minds in the world of 5G, design, marketing and technology which taught me a lot about how important each factor of the process is, and also at what stages in the development process each should be focused on. The opportunity has certainly been beneficial with building a larger network of people in the tech industry which I will be looking to make use of in the future and I will be continuing to work with them in the next stage of the process.”

Indeed, the future is bright with innovative minds such as Henry's, ready to tackle some of society's most pressing issues head-on.