URWAH NAWAZ
Winner 2022 Future Innovators Award, PhD student and co-creator of Vertere, seeking to design a smart mattress for those with mobility-limiting disabilities.
At 26, Urwah Nawaz has completed a biomedical science degree, developed an interest in coding and pivoted to bioinformatics. She is now in the last months of a PhD at the University of Adelaide in the field of neurogenetics while on exchange at UNSW Sydney. Then there's Vertere - named for the Latin verb 'to turn' - the idea she is working on with co-founder and mechatronic engineer Kate Leone. The pair aims to create a low-cost smart mattress to enable regular movement in bed for those with a mobility-limiting disability, without the need for a human carer. For Nawaz, this creation is highly personal; her mother was bedridden for a long period after a serious car accident and the family experienced firsthand the challenges of changing her position every two hours, 24 hours a day.
"After my mum was discharged, she absolutely refused to use a wheelchair. She lacked the ability to move the left side of
