The Switzerland-based French scientist has met many young people paralysed by serious sports injuries. An avid sportsman himself, he is developing an electronic bridge to be implanted between a patient’s brain and lumbar spinal cord. The bridge, supported by wireless technology, will link brain signals controlling voluntary movement with electrical stimulation of the lower spinal cord. This has the potential to encourage nerve regrowth and restore control of the legs.

“If treatment is started early, then there is a good chance of recovery,” he says. “It will help the paralysed to walk and their nerve fibres to grow again, so an individual can walk without electrical stimulation.”

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Life-threatening Malaria is prevalent worldwide and the key to treating it is early detection. Many people, especially children, die from it because accurate test results take time to process, which leads to delayed treatment. The Ugandan technologist is working on a novel low-cost portable device that uses light and magnets to give a reliable reading without drawing blood.

“The device can be supplied to district and national hospitals,” he says. “Right now, it’s 80 per cent accurate, and we and are aiming to get it to be 90 per cent accurate.”

The giant arapaima, the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish, faces extinction due to overfishing and other effects of human activity. The Brazilian fisheries biologist is working closely with local communities and fishing leaders to save it. After seeing a 30-fold recovery in arapaima numbers in South America’s Juruá River, he plans to extend the plan to 60 other communities to help save their livelihoods, food supply and culture.

“Arapaima management brings in good income [for the local communities], and protects the forest and ensures its development,” he says. “This model is not a top‑down strategy but a bottom-up one.”

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Much of the plastic waste we produce cannot be recycled, ending up in landfills and polluting the environment. The Canadian entrepreneur and molecular biologist has invented an upcycling process that breaks non-recyclable polyethylene plastic waste down into simpler chemical compounds that can be used in industrial and consumer products.

“We’ve invented a new process that’s sustainable and economical for making high-value industrial chemicals from these plastics,” she says.

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