Eight teams. Three real fire safety problems. Four minutes to convince the judges.

This year’s IYM Residential Innovation Challenge asked students to tackle fire detection head-on. Teams chose from three challenges: hearing impairment in hotels, false alarms in commercial kitchens, or fire detection in large indoor spaces.

The brief came from Pertronic Industries, the Wellington-based company behind the fire alarm systems protecting many of New Zealand's new commercial buildings.

The challenge was a culmination of a week-long stay at Silverstream Retreat in July as part of the 2026 IYM Residential programme, where students presented their solutions to a room full of judges, parents and family.

Each team had four minutes to lay out the problem, walk through how they investigated solutions, and pitch what they came up with.

The winning team, calling themselves Smart Alarm, impressed judges by looking outside the fire alarm industry entirely.

They adapted technology used to detect forest fires and applied it to their challenge, an approach none of the judges had considered.

“They kept their view open. They weren’t operating within a budget or any restrictions, it was just, how might you handle this? And that breadth of thinking is why they were a unanimous winner,” says Pertronic’s Peter Kerr, one of this year’s judges.

Peter says Pertronic sponsors IYM because it’s part of the business’s philosophy of giving back.

“It’s a chance to put a career path in front of young women who might never otherwise hear about it. And that kind of exposure matters."

“It’s a privilege being part of something we’re proud of, because we’re all responsible for growing the future, and the future is based on people.”