Updated, March 7, 8:48 p.m.
By EDD K. USMAN
Twitter: @edd1819, Instagram: @bluestar0910, Facebook: SDN — Science, Digital & Current News
AN invention dubbed the “Fluidized Bed Drying System” is the winner of the year’s Outstanding Invention (Tuklas Award).
For the feat, inventors of the equipment took the Php300,000 cash prize from the 2020 National Invention Contest and Exhibits (NICE).
The Technology Application and Promotion Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-TAPI) organized and hosted the annual event.

He are the top winners and cash prize of this year’s NICE:
- Outstanding Invention (Tuklas Award), Php300,000 and WIPO Gold Medal.
- Outstanding Utility Model, “Composite Nonwoven Fabric Heavy Metal Absorbent and Method for Preparing the Same,” Php200,000 and WIPO Plaque.
- Outstanding Industrial Design, “Hybrid Electric Train,” Php200,000 and WIPO Plaque.
- Likha Award (Creative Research), “UH1 Shofar: Mass Notification System for Local Disasters,” Php100,000.
- Sibol Award (Student Creative Research for Collegel Level), “Development and Fabrication of Digital Apparatus for Sieve Analysis and Soil Classification,” Php100,000.
- Sibol Award (Creative Research for High School Level), “Project MeTuS (Medical Tumor Scanner): Mask CT-CNN as AI Powered Low Cost Pre-Diagnostic Virtual Assistant Machine Module for Akin Cancer Screening Technology,” Php100,000

Related: 66 NICE Entries Compete for Php1.84-M Prize, Bragging Rights


For each category of the competition, here are the second and third prizes:
- Tuklas Award (Outstanding Invention) — second prize, “A Printing Machine”, with cash prize of Php200,000. No third prize.
- Utility Model — second prize, “Tractor Drawn Cassava Digger”, Php100,000; third prize, “Method of Producing Cocoa Board and Product thereof for various Housing on Carpentry Works”, Php50,000.
- Industrial Design — second prize, “Armchair”, Php100,000; third prize, “Grain ProBe (Buriki) Moisture Meter”, Php50,000.
- Likha Award (Creative Research) — second prize, “Design and Prototyping of Continuous Screw-Type Salt-Iodizing Machine”, Php50,000; third prize, “Mechanical Cacao Sheller/Huller”, Php30,000.
- Sibol Award (Student Creative Research for College Level) — “second prize, Highly Accessible and Rapidly Deployable Emergency Network”, Php50,000; third prize, “IoT-Based Soil Moisture and Soil Movement Monitoring System for Landslide”, Php30,000.
- Sibol Award (Student Creative Research for High School Level) — “Ag-Chitochin Nanodrop Solution”, Php50,000; third prize, Carbon Quantum Dots-Based Portable In-Situ Water Monitoring Device for Mercury and Lead”, Php30,000. (SDN)
Featured image of boy showing the Shofar device for disaster notifications, photo: SDN — Science and Digital News)