November 9, 2016
The Takeda Foundation
THE TAKEDA YOUNG ENTREPRENEURSHIP AWARDThe Takeda Foundation announces the Awardees of the Takeda Young
Entrepreneurship Award 2016. The highest award, the Best Entrepreneur Award
goes to Ms. Sana Talmoudi of Tohoku University for her proposal of Eyes onSign Project, Transportation Infrastructure Evaluation System.
Ms. Talmoudi is from Tunisia and has been studying at Tohoku University.
Using a mass data analysis system, she has analyzed GPS and verticalacceleration data obtained from a commercially available drive recorder on ausual car, and found that the data obtained from the drive recorder equivalent toroad infrastructure evaluation data obtained by an expensive road surface
inspection vehicle. Based on her findings, the Fukushima Prefecture roadservice authority has started a feasibility study of a new road infrastructureevaluation system based on data from drive recorders. The Takeda Foundation
highly evaluates her efforts to develop a new road infrastructure evaluation
system based on drive recorder data, and gives her the Best Entrepreneur
Award. The monetary prize for the Best Entrepreneur Award is one million yen.
The Selection Committee Special Award goes to Mr. Nnaemaka Ikegwuonu ofColdHubs Limited, Nigeria, for his contribution to the development and provisionof a solar powered cold room system to extend the shelf life of fruits andvegetables for African farmers. His cold room system can extend the shelf life of
fresh vegetables from two days to 21 days. The monetary prize for the SelectionCommittee Special Award is five hundred thousand yen.
The Entrepreneur Awards go to Ms. Angeline Makore of Mwedzi Social
Enterprise, Zimbabwe, Mr. Anuar bin Mohamed Kassim of the Technical
University of Malaysia, Malacca, Malaysia, Mr. Kazuyoshi Kanamori of Kyoto
University, Japan, and Mr. Tanuj Jhunjhunwala of Planys Technologies Pvt. Ltd.,India. The monetary prize for each of the Entrepreneur Awards is two hundred
thousand yen. The Awards Ceremony will be held on February 4, 2017, inconjunction with the Takeda Symposium in the Takeda Hall of the Takeda
Building, the University of Tokyo.
The purpose of the Takeda Young Entrepreneurship Award is to assist thedevelopment of young human resources who bring well-being to people as well

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The Takeda Foundation
as to cultivate entrepreneurship. The Award requires the submission ofsupporting letters from people who will benefit from the success of the proposed
project as well as the project proposal itself. Candidates should be young
individuals under forty years of age regardless of sex, organization or nationality.
This year, the Foundation received 51 applications from 25 countries.
Awardees were selected by a Selection Committee (Chair, Dr. Kunihiro Asada,
Director of VLSI Design and Education Center and Professor, the University ofTokyo) consisting of outside intellectuals. Finalists were selected by the selection
committee following first and second panel discussions; the Awardees werechosen following video presentations by the finalists.
CONTACT
Norio Ohto, Senior Managing Director (ohto@takeda-foundation.jp)
The Takeda Foundation
The Takeda Building 4th Floor
The University of Tokyo
2-11-16 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
113-0032 JAPANTEL: +81-3-3868-0160
FAX: +81-3-3868-0161
URL: www.takeda-foundation.jp

November 9, 2016
The Takeda Foundation
THE BEST ENTREPRENEUR AWARD
Sana Talmoudi（Tohoku University, Graduate Student, Tunisia）
Eyes on Sign Project, Transportation Infrastructure Evaluation
SystemTHE SELECTION COMMITTEE SPECIAL AWARD
Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu (ColdHubs Limited, CEO, Nigeria)
ColdHubs – Solar powered cold rooms to extend the shelf life offruits and vegetables for African farmers

THE ENTREPRENEUR AWARDAngeline Makore (Founder, Mwedzi SocialZimbabwe)Social Enterprise – Reusable Sanitary Pads

Enterprise,THE ENTREPRENEUR AWARD
Anuar bin Mohamed Kassim （Senior Lecturer, Technical
University of Malaysia, Malacca, Malaysia）
My 2nd Eye

THE ENTREPRENEUR AWARD
Kazuyoshi Kanamori （Assistant Professor, Kyoto University,Japan）
Development of Organic-inorganic Hybrid Aerogels for ThermalSuperinsulators

THE ENTREPRENEUR AWARD
Tanuj Jhunjhunwala （ CEO, Planys Technologies Pvt. Ltd.,India）
Underwater Robotic Inspection and Survey Solutions

November 9, 2016
The Takeda Foundation

AWARD SUMMARY

THE BEST ENTREPRENEUR AWARD
Sana Talmoudi （Graduate Student, Tohoku University, Tunisia）
Eyes on Sign Project, Transportation Infrastructure Evaluation System
Currently it requires several hundred million yen (several million US dollars) toinspect road damage using an expensive road surface inspection vehicle andanalyzing vast amounts of data. Ms. Talmoudi has analyzed changes in verticalacceleration due to road conditions based on data obtained from a commerciallyavailable drive recorder on board a usual car, and succeeded in visualizing theextent of road damage using a toorPIA data analysis system, thus enabling an
inexpensive evalutation of road infrastructure based on drive recorder data.
Following her finding, the Fukushima Prefecture road service authority has
conducted a feasibility study of a new road infrastructure evaluation systemusing a drive recorder, and obtained data comparable to those obtained using anexpensive road surface inspection vehicle. The new road evaluation systemenables every day road inspection whereas the special road inspection vehicle
can be used only once every 5 years because of the availability of the specialvehicle. The new system will reduce the current road inspection cost to onefourth.
The development of the new road infrastructure evaluation system is acollaboration project among the Fukushima Prefectural Government, Tohoku
University, and a private company, toor Inc., Ms. Talmoudi has been activelyinvolved in the project by collecting and analyzing data, and has made asignificant contribution to the realization of the new road infrastructure evaluation
system. She has not only contributed to the development of the new roadinfrastructure evaluation system, but also plans to apply the data analysis
system to the diagnosis of Sleep Apnea Syndrome and to information security.
Her efforts deserve the Best Entrepreneur Award.
THE SELECTION COMMITTEE SPECIAL AWARD
Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu (CEO, ColdHubs Limited, Nigeria)

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The Takeda Foundation
ColdHubs – solar powered cold rooms to extend the shelf life of fruits andvegetables for African farmers
Smallholder farmers lose major harvested vegetables and fruits as a result offood spoilage in Nigeria because they lack a sufficient electrical supply, and do
not have access to reliable cold storage. Mr. Ikegwuonu felt the necessity ofproviding cold storage space to smallholder farmers, and developed solar
powered walk-in cold rooms in 2014, using his private fund of 7,800 US dollars.
With a grant from the Nigerian government, he conducted a feasibility study ofsolar powered cold rooms, and proved that the shelf life of vegetables wasextended from two days to 21 days by maintaining cold room temperatures
between 5 and 15 degrees. Based on the success of the feasibility study, heestablished ColdHubs, Limited in 2015. Currently three cold rooms are runningthat provide 450 rental cold boxes, each of which stores 30 kg of fresh
vegetables and fruits. The rental fee for one box is 50 US cents a day. With thisservice, farmers can reduce crop loss by 80%, and increase their income by25%. The Takeda Foundation highly evaluates his commitment to a specific local
challenge by establishing his own company, ColdHubs, Limited, and providing apractical solution to smallholder farmers in Nigeria. He deserves the Selection
Committee Special Award.
THE ENTREPRENEUR AWARDAngeline Makore (Founder, Mwedzi Social Enterprise, Zimbabwe)Social Enterprise – Reusable Sanitary Pads
In Zimbabwe, a packet of non-reusable sanitary pads for women costs morethan one US dollar, while poor families survive on less than one US dollar perday. Adolescent girls are known to engage in inter-generational sexual
relationships to earn a bit of money to purchase pads. This leads to enormous
problems such as unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, HIV
infection and a high teenage mortality rate due to unsafe abortions. Lack ofaccess to sanitary wear has a considerable negative impact on the economy.
In-order to mitigate these problems, Ms. Makore has incorporated “Mwedzi(Moon) Social Enterprise” to produce reusable sanitary pads made from locallyavailable materials. The unique points of this enterprise include not only selling
the products, but also on providing girls from impoverished backgrounds withfree sanitary pads that can be used for more than one year, as well as providing

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The Takeda Foundation
jobs for women. The pads will be on sale from January 2017, at a price of six US
dollars for 5 pads. Ms. Makore’s plans include not only selling the products, butalso providing hygiene management education to girls in order to have a positive
influence on the economy in a broad sense.
The Foundation evaluates her efforts and contributions toward developing abright future for women in Zimbabwe.

Anuar bin Mohamed Kassim （Senior Lecturer, Technical University ofMalaysia, Malacca, Malaysia）
My 2nd Eye
Visually impaired persons use canes to detect dangerous obstacles when they
go out, but they cannot detect obstacles located above breast height with canes,and tend to get injured by hitting their heads on obstacles. Mr. Kassim felt a needto provide visually impaired persons with something to detect higher obstacles,and developed a goggle type obstacle detector. The goggles contain an
ultrasonic detector that can detect obstacles located within 1.5 meter of thegoggles. The goggles inform the distance of an obstacle from the goggle carrier
by the volume of its warning sound, and the direction of the obstacle (ahead,right, or left) by the pitch of the sound. The goggles inform the extent of battery
charge by the number of sound pulses. The goggles weigh only 50 grams, andcan be carried without discomfort. Mr. Kassim conducted a feasibility test andproved that the goggles can detect higher obstacles. The goggles are the firstdetector for higher obstacles for visually impaired persons. He has been
improving the quality of the goggles, and has provided 30 goggles to visually
impaired persons through NGO and company CSR activities. The Technical
University of Malaysia, Malacca, holds the IPR, and Mr. Kassim is preparing toestablish his own company to manufacture and sell the goggles. The Takeda
Foundation evaluates his efforts highly, and gives the Entrepreneur Award.

Kazuyoshi Kanamori （Assistant Professor, Kyoto University, Japan）
Development of Organic-inorganic Hybrid Aerogels for thermal
Superinsulators
Silica aerogels have a very low thermal conductivity and can be a goodmaterial for use as a thermal insulator. However, they have an extremely low

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The Takeda Foundation
mechanical strength, and their production process requires a stage ofsupercritical drying to avoid irreversible shrinkage. This raises the total
manufacturing cost and has been a major barrier to the mass production of silica
aerogels. After serial experiments, Mr. Kanamori has succeeded in developing anew production pathway without the supercritical drying step to produce neworganic-inorganic silica aerogels with very low thermal conductivities (15 W/m・K) and sufficient mechanical strength. The new aerogels also have newproperties such as transparency and flexibility. The new production pathway
uses a new starting compound that replaces one of the methoxy groups of thecurrent starting compound with a methyl group, and involves a hydrolysis
reaction under acidic conditions followed by alkaline polycondensation toproduce solid gel skeletons. The new aerogels can be mass-produced at
one-tenth the cost of usual silica aerogels, and can be used as transparent
thermal insulator for building windows. The new organic-inorganic silica aerogels
are regarded as the next generation of low cost super thermal insulators byindustry. Mr. Kanamori has been collaborating with private companies to market
the new aerogels in 2020, and his efforts deserve the Entrepreneur Award.

Tanuj Jhunjhunwala （CEO, Planys Technologies Pvt. Ltd., India）
Underwater Robotic Inspection and Survey Solutions
Recently, measures to address the aging of old infrastructure are becoming
more and more important. Especially, alternative ways to safely inspect offshore
structural assets are necessary to replace dangerous and costly underwaterinspection by human divers. Mr. Jhunjhunwala started the development of asmall underwater inspection robot in 2013, and succeeded in producing acompact, portable, and maneuverable underwater inspection robot with thefeatures of modularity. He established Planys Technologies as CEO with
graduate students and faculty members from IIT Madras, and started themanufacture and sales of underwater robots, and an inspection service using
underwater robots in February, 2015. Their underwater robots have been usedsuccessfully to inspect of offshore tanker terminals damaged by the cyclone in2014, and for the inspection of underwater gates located at the bottom of a dam
where crocodiles live. Planys Technologies has obtained more than 20
customers in India, and the company plans to expand their underwaterinspection business to emerging countries including those in Southeast Asia andNovember 9, 2016
The Takeda Foundation
the Middle East where there is an increasing demand for the inspection ofunderwater infrastructure.
The Takeda Foundation highly evaluates the fact that Mr. Jhunjhunwala hasaddressed an increasing demand for underwater inspection by developing andproviding small size underwater robots, and by offering low cost underwaterinspection. His challenge deserves the Entrepreneur Award.