Muaz Nawaz (13), Daanyaal Ali, and Chirag Shah (both 14) won the healthcare category of the TeenTech award for their idea called ‘S.T.Eye.’
TeenTech is a award that encourages students aged between 11 and 16 to use technology to solve real-world problems.
‘S.T.Eye’ contains a built-in indicator that will make condoms change colour when they come into contact with the proteins in bacteria that are commonly found in STIs.
The schoolboys, who attend Issac Newton Academy in IIford, say the colour change would work on both sides of the condom, with different colours for different STIs (green for chlamydia, purple for genital warts, blue for syphilis and yellow for herpes).
Daanyaal explained: “Once the (bodily) fluids come into contact with the latex, if the person does have some sort of STI, it will cause a reaction through antibodies and antigens hanging on to each other, which triggers an antibody reaction causing a colour change.
“We took inspiration from an HIV testing method (called Elisa) which utilises colour-changing.”
He continued: “We noticed how big the condom market was. We saw it was huge because in England there were 450,000 diagnoses of STIs in 2013 alone.
“We got help from our science teacher and he told us about antibodies and antigens and how that would work.”
Chirag added: It prevents (people) from getting embarrassed going to clinics, and [lets them] find out in the privacy of their own home.”
The trio also stated that a condom company has “shown interest” in working with them on developing the concept further.