After an internal selection process, the Department of Chemical Engineering agreed to nominate Lucy Wills and Kirthi Chetty's final year project titled Green LPG cooking test design and demonstration. Dr Jack V Fletcher, their supervisor, said, "Lucy and Kirthi were great and delivered top quality work. I was very pleased with their nomination.”  The Acting Dean at the time, A/Professor Kathy Michell, agreed on the nomination, and as only one individual was allowed to present, Lucy Wills was put forward as the UCT candidate. She was to do a seven-minute presentation, followed by a three-minute question and answer session. Lucy agreed that if she won, the prize money would be shared with Kirthi.

Unfortunately, at the last minute several delegates and organisers tested positive for COVID so the event was cancelled. The organisers decided that each nominated student would receive R15 000 and a certificate.

The prize is to honour EH Mathews (senior), who passed away on 20 June 2020 at the age of 88. He wanted to motivate engineering students to achieve excellence and bring academia and industry closer together. He believed that an engineer must be able to swiftly and efficiently "sell" their story to the CEO and other funders who are very often non-engineers.

This year, Lucy intends to register for a master's programme focusing on growing her engineering knowledge towards a sustainable development application. She was also the recipient of the SA Institution of Chemical Engineers' Silver Medal, awarded for outstanding performance over the four-year curriculum, based on best overall GPA.

In 2021, Kirthi co-founded STEM femme, an online platform to motivate, inspire and engage with young girls in STEM. This year she is an operations intern at SouthSouthNorth, a company that supports national and regional responses to climate change through policy and knowledge interventions, partnerships and deep collaboration.