This year’s €50,000 Philips Innovation Award has gone to student start-up Pearltect, which is developing an arm band to ward off sexual attacks.

The arm band not only emits a strong smell to scare off attackers but sprays them with a DNA marker which is difficult to wash off. The chemical lights up under UV lighting and will make it easier to identify culprits.

The Pearltect team, which also took the public prize, is made up of students from Erasmus and Delft universities and Rotterdam’s hbo college.

The four other finalists included Homey, a voice-controlled home assistant, a design tool for city planners named Smart Blocks, the Blue Battery storage system, and 3D printing platform Printr.