A fresh graduate of PolyU’s School of Design, Peggy Chang Pei-chi, was named the National Winner (Hong Kong) of the James Dyson Award 2021 with a smart dining service and product system specially designed for caregivers to feed the elderly in care homes.

The winning invention, “omnom.”, can enhance safety in feeding the elderly and raise their satisfaction during the eating process. It also addresses swallowing difficulties, improves interaction quality between the elderly and caregivers during meals, and facilitates stakeholder communication and effective management through data digitalisation.

“omnom.” comprises five components: a wearable neckpiece for monitoring, a spoon for sustaining oral muscle abilities, a tray for personalised care, a trolley for smart catering, and an app for data digitalisation.

	The neckpiece with a swallow sensor offers a more reliable alternative to visual inspection by caregivers.
	The spoon made of both soft and hard materials has a hole in the middle to maximise the elderly's active involvement in dining and sustain their oral muscle abilities.
	The tray supports personalized menus and meal content tracking.  The trolley is a vehicle for delivery, storage and charging.
	Digitalised dining and serving data are uploaded to the cloud, processed and made available to stakeholders via the app. The digitalised recording system frees caregivers from manually recording meal data.

A demonstration of feeding with "omnom."

Peggy said, “I wanted to pin down the critical task that gives caregivers substantial work pressure and exposes residents to safety hazards. 'omnom.' can help optimise the workloads of care home staff, and maximise service quality through design and technological intervention.”

A judge of the Award commended “omnom.” as being “an enlightened project that improves service quality and efficiency through the proper application of technology”. As a Hong Kong Award finalist, Peggy will enter the international round of the competition.

The James Dyson Award is an international award that encourages aspiring design engineers to apply their knowledge and discover new ways to improve lives through technology.