On 14 June 2013, Team LEVAR from the University of Säo Paolo won the Airbus Fly Your Ideas (FYI) competition with their innovative project for a fast luggage loading and unloading system for airplane cargo compartments. Their idea, inspired by air hockey tables, focused on modifying the luggage loading and unloading system with air cushions. This was Airbus’ third FYI competition and the first under the patronage of UNESCO. More than 600 teams of over 6000 students from five continents submitted proposals on new ideas for an eco-efficient aviation industry.

In cooperation with UNESCO, the FYI competition focuses on finding novel ways of reshaping the air transport industry in six areas: Energy, Efficiency, Affordable Growth, Traffic Growth, Passenger Growth and Community Friendliness. This competition offers participants the opportunity to connect with an engineer and to learn first-hand the importance of developing an economically-, environmentally- and socially-responsible industry. 

Through this competition and other events, corporations in partnership with UNESCO are increasing awareness of the importance of engineers for the socio-economic development. As is the case in many engineering fields, Airbus is concerned that it will be increasingly difficult to meet future industry demands due to a decreasing number of aviation engineers. As explained by Ms Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO,

The diversity of these students’ ideas is a huge source of inspiration. Their talent also serves to remind us of the urgent need to train more engineers, to develop the skills and competences needed to translate ideas into reality and put science into practice. This is UNESCO’s ambition and one of the objectives of this partnership with Airbus is to inspire more innovative ideas for our future, in sustainable transportation and even further.

This competition is generating interest in engineering among youth, increasing the visibility of engineers in society and harvesting relationships between corporations, governments, engineers and societies. Given the innovative success of the 2013 competition, UNESCO is looking forward to partnering with Airbus for the FYI 2014 competition.