SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son’s influence on Canada’s tech community is extending beyond venture capital deals. The Masason Foundation, established in 2016 by Son to foster young innovation talent, has selected four Ontario students as part of its latest 34-member global cohort. 

The students developed ideas with The Knowledge Society, a Canadian innovation program for youth aged 13 to 17, over 10 months. Masason will provide funding and an environment that enables students to develop their business concepts and pursue research and higher education.

Here’s a look at what the four Canadian students hope to achieve:

Aneka Mulgund, 16, Hamilton

Mulgund learned that redox flow batteries are suitable for storing eight hours of energy to bridge the gap between peaks and troughs of daily electricity usage. However, the membrane that separates the positive and negative sides of the battery cracks under pressure. She wants to use machine learning on existing data to unlock insights into what factors affect the mechanical strength of the membrane. “If my ideas … can go past the conception stage, then I would definitely hope to start my own startup,” said Mulgund, who added that she hopes to achieve that even earlier with Masason’s support.

Naila Moloo, 16, Ottawa

Moloo started researching solar energy in Grade 9. While there is a lot of research on how to increase solar panel efficiency, she found a niche in making them applicable in a wider variety of spaces by creating transparent and flexible solar panels that could be applied to building windows or cars. While she said Masason’s funding will help her buy materials for her project, she also hopes to benefit from a larger network. “Then there’s the community aspect because there’s such an incredible cohort of kids around the world,” she added.

Sri Anumakonda, 16, Toronto

Anumakonda is a self-described autonomous-vehicle enthusiast interested in artificial intelligence and self-driving cars. He built his first self-driving car when he was just 14. Anumakonda is currently building a self-driving vehicle using machine learning and trajectory generation methods.

Pavan Jayasinha, 19, Waterloo

Jayasinha is studying computer engineering at the University of Waterloo and is an intern at Toronto-based Untether AI. The company is building computer chips from the ground up for graphics-based machine learning tasks. His role is to help design low-level codes to run machine learning models on those chips. “I have so much to learn,” said Jayasinha. “I want to become … really technically proficient in the areas of machine learning, physics, information theory, mathematics and quantum mechanics. I feel like these are areas that will have a pivotal impact in the future.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify details of what members receive from the Masason Foundation, and that it was established with SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son’s personal assets.