Two UNSW students have won a major engineering competition, triumphing over entrants from several of the world's leading universities, including Oxford.

Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications students Simon Blythe and Kelly Poole prevailed at the Institute of Engineering & Technology's (IET) Present Around the World competition.

The competition, in which entrants are judged on their presentation skills as well as their research, was held in Glasgow and included entries from countries ranging from Canada, England and Sri Lanka.

In May last year the pair won the Australian Technical Presentation Prize, organised by the IET, qualifying them to compete in the international competition.

Kelly presented their joint thesis, which looked at devices based on ZigBee technology - a wireless communication protocol featuring low-power consumption and adhoc networking, to the international judges. One of the systems developed, the Dynamic Feedback System, aims at improving the quality of teaching in educational institutions through real-time feedback.

"Simon and I would like to thank the school of EE&T for their support, both in terms of technical guidance and professional development - in particular the former head of EE&T, Professor Branko Celler," she says.

Simon and Kelly are now establishing an electronics design company - LX Innovations - focusing on contract design of wireless and embedded systems.

"Not only has the Uni helped us to get to this point, they have also been our first customer - 100 units of our student feedback system will be trialled in electrical engineering classes this year," Simon says.