The Royal Academy of Engineering Rooke Award for public promotion of engineering has been presented to Dr Larissa Suzuki, a technologist, entrepreneur and engineer who is Data and AI Practice Lead at Google Cloud and is working with Google internet evangelist Dr Vint Cerf to develop the Interplanetary Internet, as well as working on initiatives with University College London and Google Cloud on sustainability and smart cities. Dr Suzuki received her award at a special celebration in London on 13 July attended by the Academy’s Royal Fellow, HRH The Princess Royal.

At the age of 17, Larissa initiated an educational program at weekends in her native Brazil, teaching maths and computing to young people and their parents, supporting them in acquiring new skills to escape poverty. Every year, her programme had over 13,000 attendees from economically deprived backgrounds.

Her Masters project was to design algorithms to improve early detection of breast cancer by enhancing medical images obtained during mammography. Through her work, even women in remote areas of Brazil using older X-ray equipment could benefit from a system capable of increasing early detection of breast cancer by 15% and decreasing false positive cases by 66%.

After moving to the UK to pursue a PhD in computer science, amongst many initiatives, Larissa  founded the UCL Society of Women Engineers and co-founded the London branch of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, bringing the joy of computer programming and engineering to thousands of women, minorities and young people. Throughout her 16+ years career, she has personally mentored over 400 women. Her initiatives have helped the Computer Department at UCL to receive the Athena Swan scheme’s Silver Award, and the Minerva Informatics Equality Award 2020.

Dr Suzuki has also drawn powerfully on her own personal experience of autism to champion disability inclusion and neurodiversity. She has created and supported initiatives for women in technology in all the industries she has worked in. As part of Google, she is an active member of the Disability Alliance, speaking openly about her autism and the need for companies to embrace neurodiversity and empathic leaders in their workforce. She has spoken to audiences of up to 6,000 people, and has contributed to the company’s disability inclusion training, which is aimed at promoting inclusion and demystifying the stereotypes surrounding people with disabilities, especially those who suffer from invisible neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Professor Sue Black OBE, Professor of Computer Science at Durham University, nominated Dr Suzuki for the Rooke Award. She says:

“I’ve known Dr Suzuki for many years now, she is a truly remarkable woman who has excelled not just in her own technical and entrepreneurial achievements but in contributing to wider society. Since 2003, alongside being a great engineer, she has devoted her life to developing innovative ways, notably in the use of digital technology, to help people realise their potential and overcome obstacles in their personal lives and careers.”

Dr Larissa Suzuki says:

“I am honoured to receive the 2021 Rooke Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering. To all the girls out there who dream about engineering as a profession – go for it – it is the most incredible job in the world. Receiving this award is a personal triumph, but I would also like to extend a thanks to those who have helped me along the way, from colleagues to my friends and family.”

Notes for Editors

1. The Rooke Award for the public promotion of engineering is awarded to an individual, small team or organisation who has contributed to the Academy’s aims and work through their initiative in promoting engineering to the public. The award is named in honour of the late Sir Denis Rooke OM CBE FRS FREng, a former President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and one of the UK’s most distinguished engineers. As Chairman of British Gas, his legacy was to build the UK’s gas distribution network and unite the gas industry, making domestic gas a cheap and convenient fuel source for millions of people. He later became Chancellor of Loughborough University and served on many national advisory committees on both energy policy and education. He supported and championed public engagement, including the Year of Engineering Success held in 1997.

2. For more information on Dr Larissa Suzuki’s work see https://larissasuzuki.com/

3. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone.

In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public.

Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

For more information please contact:

Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering

T: +44 207 766 0636

E:  Jane Sutton

The engineers behind the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak Upgrade (MAST-U), the UK’s national fusion experiment based in UKAEA’s Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire, have received the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Major Project Award for 2021. MAST-U is a pivotal step towards achieving commercially viable fusion power plants and a future source of clean, safe and plentiful energy. The team were presented with their award at a special celebration in London on 13 July attended by the Academy’s Royal Fellow, HRH The Princess Royal.

Exterior view of the MAST Upgrade machine  Copyright EUROfusion

MAST Upgrade’s compact fusion design, the ‘spherical tokamak’, has the potential to provide a cheaper, more efficient means of providing fusion energy than is possible in larger devices. However, a big engineering challenge in getting the more compact machines on the electricity grid is how to sustain a fuel ten times hotter than the Sun in a smaller volume without damaging the machine itself. The team at Culham led the design and production of a complex and technically challenging exhaust system, called the Super-X divertor, on MAST Upgrade. This reduces the heat of the exhaust material by a factor of ten and channels it out of the machine at temperatures low enough for the machine’s components to withstand, improving the operational life and economic viability of a future fusion power plant.

The MAST-U leadership team reflect the breadth of engineering capability working on this complex project, from high-voltage power and complex and precise mechanical assembly to control and instrumentation, underpinned by transformative, ambitious science.

The recipients of the Major Project Award are: Dr Andrew Kirk, Director of Tokamak Science; Dr Joe Milnes, MAST-U Construction Project Leader; Nanna Heiberg, MAST-U Operations Department Manager; Dr Richard Martin, MAST-U Operations Manager; Dr Paul Stevenson, Electrical Engineering Department Manager.

The team embarked on a design and build programme of MAST-U in 2010, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation. By November 2020 they had completed the new £55M device and performed fusion tests for the first time. The device comprises 130,000 components, with 90% of contracts placed in the UK supply chain. 20 magnets have been built, the largest over 4m in diameter, each containing 5000 components installed to sub-mm accuracy. The vessel interior is lined with 1000 graphite tiles to manage the extreme heat fluxes, cryo-pumped to ultra-low vacuum pressures of 1 x 10-8 mbar. Finally, 120km of cabling, 2km of gas supply lines and over 1000 different detectors enable sophisticated control of the fuel, which is thinner than air.

Professor Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FREng, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Committee, said: “The UK is pioneering smaller, cheaper fusion devices and the Awards Committee was very proud to reward the engineers behind the success of MAST Upgrade. The project delivers an important boost to plans for a prototype fusion power plant in the UK and this will ultimately enable the affordable and efficient delivery of a new and sustainable source of electricity.”

Nanna Heiberg, MAST-U Construction Project Leader, said: “I am thrilled to have been part of the team building and commissioning this complex, precision machine. This award is a wonderful accolade to the role MAST Upgrade will be playing in making fusion energy a reality, which will have an immense impact on the world.”

Notes for Editors

1. The Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Celebration was held on 13 July 2021 in Prince Philip House in central London. All necessary measures were taken to deliver an event that was COVID-19 safe and secure for guests and staff.
2. Fusion has huge potential as a long-term energy source that is low carbon and inherently safe, with abundant and widespread fuel resources (the raw materials are found in seawater and the Earth’s crust). Fusion researchers are developing the tokamak – a chamber that uses a powerful magnetic field to confine hydrogen isotopes as they are heated into a plasma in which the isotope nuclei collide and fuse together. This releases energy that can generate electricity – the same way as the Sun creates heat and light.
3. The Major Project Award recognises the contribution of a team of up to five engineers, based in the UK, who have delivered a major engineering project that has had a substantial impact on society. Previous winners include the engineers behind The Ordsall Chord, the Queensferry Crossing, the Shah Deniz 2 project, and the technology to communicate with the Rosetta spacecraft as it delivered the Philae probe onto the surface of a comet. Winners of the Major Project Award receive a silver gilt medal.
4. The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) carries out fusion energy research on behalf of the UK Government at Culham Science Centre near Oxford. UKAEA oversees Britain’s fusion programme, headed by the MAST Upgrade (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) experiment. It also hosts the world’s largest fusion research facility, JET (Joint European Torus), which it operates for European scientists under a contract with the European Commission. More information: www.gov.uk/ukaea. Twitter: @UKAEAofficial
5. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

Media enquiries to: Pippa Cox at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 207 766 0745; email: Pippa.Cox@raeng.org.uk

The Royal Academy of Engineering has commented on two strategies published today by the government–the Innovation Strategy and R&D People and Culture Strategy—that, together, aim to help to make the UK a world-leader in science, research and innovation that attracts, retains and nurtures the diverse talent from all backgrounds needed to sustain and build on our excellent research base.

Commenting on the Innovation Strategy, which commits to supporting businesses and institutions at the cutting edge of innovation including through a series of ‘innovation missions’, Academy President Professor Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE said:

“The Innovation Strategy is a timely and powerful publication. With businesses responsible for the majority of innovation and R&D done in the UK it is welcome, and somewhat refreshing, to have a strategy so focused on the objective of boosting innovation by private sector firms.

“With pressures on public finances, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses, and growing global competition, supporting businesses to manage the risks associated with R&D and encourage innovation is a way of securing our future growth and reaping the returns from our investment in research.

“A multitude of factors influence businesses’ ability to undertake innovation and responsibility for these is spread across the whole of the government, from skills to export and beyond. The Strategy recognises this. Its successful delivery will be rely on a whole-government approach to implementation, and this must also include action to ensure the long-term sustainability of the research base.

“I am pleased to see Innovate UK feature strongly and be identified as crucial to increasing innovation in the UK. I hope this recognition will be matched with a long-called-for uplift in budget, and multi-year commitment to funding, so that the highly accomplished new CEO can realise the agency’s full potential. Ambitions for public procurement and to unlock the potential of pension funds could be transformative, though as recent history proves, challenging to deliver.

“Now government must engage with the businesses and entrepreneurs who can make its innovation ambitions a reality and ensure that government spending decisions are equal to its vision for an innovation-led low-carbon economy that delivers benefits across the country.”

In April of this year, the National Engineering Policy Centre, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering, published the report Late-stage R&D: business perspectives that concluded that a future as a science and innovation superpower is achievable but only with greater and more targeted government policies and support.

The R&D People and Culture strategy also published today sets out a vision across the themes of people, culture and talent, to deliver the UK’s R&D ambitions, and calls for collective and coordinated action from across the sector.

Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, CEO Royal Academy of Engineering and member of the R&D People and Culture Strategy Steering Group, said: “I strongly welcome today’s publication of the R&D People & Culture Strategy. This is a milestone that I hope will mark a step change in how the R&D community approaches the challenge of attracting, retaining and nurturing diverse talent and creating cultures in which everyone can thrive and contribute, irrespective of their background. This is vital to our ability to attract the full breadth of talent we need to fulfil the many and varied roles across R&D-based sectors, and to our ability to build on and sustain the excellence in our research base that we are rightly proud of.

“I applaud the Minister for her personal leadership in the development of the R&D People & Culture Strategy. I have been delighted to work with her on the Strategy steering group and the Royal Academy of Engineering is fully committed to collaborating with government and the wider research and innovation community to make sure the strategy results in the progress we need.”

Professor Karen Holford CBE FREng FLSW, Chair of the Academy’s Research Committee and Deputy Vice-Chair, Cardiff University, said: “I am delighted to see the R&D People and Culture Strategy emphasise the value of enabling people, talent and ideas to flow freely between academia, business and other sectors. The Academy’s own schemes are intentionally designed to deliver excellent R&D by fostering collaboration between academia and industry, broadening career horizons, and equipping individuals with diverse skills.

“As a research funder we strive for excellence in the delivery of our programmes, for example in offering awardees mentoring and flexible working conditions, but there is always room for improvement whether it be in support for top talent or the application processes. For instance, as part of our commitment to continuous improvement the Academy will exploring the use of narrative CVs.”

Professor Sarah Hainsworth OBE FREng, Chair of the Academy’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean for the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Aston University, added: “Fulfilling and sustainable careers in R&D in both academia and industry should be attractive and open to everyone, but as today’s R&D People and Culture Strategy acknowledges, we are not at that point yet. Inspiring people from all backgrounds to consider careers in R&D and ensuring there are no barriers to entry requires significant change – from school right through to the industry employers. This was highlighted in our recent work on the Hamilton Commission, which looked at how to improve the representation of Black people within engineering roles in UK motorsport.

“The Academy is committed to creating cultures that bring together diverse perspectives, and in which everyone can thrive and enrich our collective performance. We seek not only to effect change in our own programmes but also to be an agent of change within the wider engineering community.”

Notes for Editors

The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

Media enquiries to: Pippa Cox at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 207 766 0745; email: Pippa.Cox@raeng.org.uk

Good ventilation inside public buildings and on transport systems is essential to reducing the risk of Covid-19 and other infections, according to a report published today by the Royal Academy of Engineering and its partners in the National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC).

In a report commissioned by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, leading engineers say the importance of ventilation is too often neglected, and that the Covid-19 crisis has revealed flaws in the way in which we design, manage and operate buildings. Unless they are addressed, these could disrupt management of this and future pandemics, impose high financial and health costs on society and constrain our ability to address other challenges such as climate change.

Clear, consistent communication and advice on ventilation from government and professional bodies is needed to help building owners and operators to manage infection risks, finds the report. Clearly identifiable measures that can be implemented at moderate cost will help to ensure that adequate ventilation is prioritised alongside more visible measures such as surface cleaning and distancing.

The report also warns that there is an urgent need to plug skills and knowledge gaps and put in place the training, re-skilling and recruitment needed to fill them. Even in sectors such as hospitals, which have a clear regulatory framework and an explicit remit for managing the health and safety of vulnerable populations, levels of skill and competence vary. In a series of evidentiary hearings, the Royal Academy of Engineering uncovered differing levels of organisational maturity across operators and sectors, and variation in the ability and motivation of owners to understand, manage and govern issues of infection control.

Investment in research and development is needed to clarify issues such as acceptable minimum standards for ventilation to support regulation by Local Authorities and others. Efforts to increase resilience to infection must also work alongside the delivery of significant carbon emission savings from our buildings. These two ambitions should be driven forward in tandem and efforts across government need to be fully coordinated.

The report warns that technological solutions are not a ‘silver bullet’, and uninformed reliance on technology can even have negative consequences. For example, air cleaning using high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters or ultraviolet light (UVC) can be effective at reducing infection risks in locations where good ventilation is difficult to achieve. However, the benefits are of using other kinds of air cleaning devices, often heavily marketed, are less clear.

Key recommendations in the report include:

1. Government should urgently map the knowledge and skills requirements across the building industry, general businesses, and the engineering professions and put in place plans to address the skills gaps identified.
2. Government should undertake a rapid review of the capacity and capability requirements among regulators (including local authorities) to support and enforce standards in maintaining buildings for public health.
3. Working with the National Core Studies Programme, UKRI and the National Academies, government should put in place an action plan to address key research gaps on an accelerated basis.
4. Research and demonstration projects should be commissioned to fill key knowledge gaps such as the acceptable minimum standards for ventilation to manage infection risk and to underwrite regulation and enforcement.
5. Action to meet Net Zero must be developed in a way which is consistent with priorities around indoor air quality and making buildings resilient to infection.

Professor Peter Guthrie OBE FREng, Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chair of the NEPC infection resilient environments working group, says:

“Buildings make an enormous difference to people’s health and we have often neglected this in the past, which is bad news in a pandemic, because they are one of the most significant levers that we have to control infection. We must take action now to make sure that good practice in ventilation is widely understood and applied across workplaces and public buildings.

“Longer term, this is a real opportunity to transform the way we design and manage our buildings to create good, healthy and sustainable environments for those who use them. We must also integrate this with thinking on infection control into our approach to Net Zero, to prevent inadvertently hard-wiring a susceptibility to infection and other health risks into our building stock and management practices.”

Dr Hywel Davies CChem CSci, Technical Director at the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, says:

“Clear communication on ventilation is essential – we need to support owners and operators with clear and simple guidance, emphasising the importance of improving ventilation while maintaining wider good practice on infection control.

“Our aim should be to enable everyone who has responsibility for managing buildings or transport to understand how to respond in a practical and timely manner, and to establish an appropriate balance of measures to manage infection risks alongside thermal comfort, air quality and energy concerns.”

Notes for Editors

1. The full paper Infection Resilient Environments: Buildings that keep us healthy and safe – initial report is available at www.raeng.org.uk/infection-resilient-environments

Infection resilient environments: Buildings that keep us healthy and safe – initial report was compiled by a National Engineering Policy Centre working group led by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) with key inputs from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Chemical Engineers. Evidentiary hearings were held with representatives of a range of sectors including hospitals, care homes, local government, higher education, hospitality, offices and transport.

This initial report highlights immediate issues ahead of winter and sets the agenda for more strategic, long-lasting change, which will be explored in more depth in the second phase of the project.

2. The National Engineering Policy Centre is a unified voice for 43 professional engineering organisations, representing 450,000 engineers, a partnership led by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

We give policymakers a single route to advice from across the engineering profession.

We inform and respond to policy issues of national importance, for the benefit of society.

3. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone.

In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public.

Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

For more information please contact:

Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering

T: +44 207 766 0636

E:  Jane Sutton

• Nineteen projects will help develop more agile approaches to the safety and management of complex systems

• First roadmap published to help convene an international community to advance the development of safer complex systems

Nineteen case studies of vastly different complex systems are being funded by Engineering X to examine systemic successes and failures arising out of complexity and help explain how specific approaches to the design, management or governance of complex systems affect safety.

The case studies are drawn from around the world and from different sectors—from construction, transport and fire safety to energy supply and health and social care. Each one will examine the underlying principles of a success or failure story (past, present or potential) and will summarise this information as a set of generalised learnings from which the wider community can learn. They will help support much-needed collaboration and knowledge sharing among diverse sets of stakeholders who currently talk about complex systems in very different ways.

The case studies have been commissioned by the Safer Complex Systems mission within Engineering X, which has also published its first strategy outlining its approach to promoting better understanding of complex systems and how to manage them. Engineering X is an international collaboration, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd’s Register Foundation, that brings together some of the world’s leading problem-solvers to address the great challenges of our age.

“Complex systems are many and varied, growing in number and impacting our lives daily, often in ways we don’t realise,” says Professor Roger Kemp MBE FREng, who leads the Engineering X Safer Complex Systems advisory group, explaining the background to the mission. “The world’s climate is an important example of a complex system in which natural phenomena are interlinked and changes in one can impact others via complex feedback loops, many of which are not well understood. Essential services such as health and social care, education, food and water supply, communications, finance, retail, transport and power supplies are also more interconnected than ever before. When complex systems don’t work as expected or fail altogether the impacts can be far-reaching.

“Some complex systems are engineered – such as a city metro system – there is a plan, the participants are known in advance, and there are protocols and regulations in place. There is little ambiguity over its geographical extent, assets, operations or responsibility for the safety of the network. Other complex systems can be ad hoc – with no central authority, players joining and leaving at will, and regulation covered by multiple jurisdictions.

“Often people find themselves in a complex system-of-systems that, until one system fails and there is a cascading effect on lots of other systems, no-one had previously thought of as being interconnected, and the development of appropriate oversight and governance is not keeping up with the pace of change.”

Professor Brian Collins CB FREng, who chaired the case study selection panel, said: “It is clear that when it comes to the challenges of living and working safely in an ever more complex and unpredictable world and the systems within it, we need to develop new tools and more agile ways of approaching education, training, policymaking, governance and regulation.

“The Engineering X Safer Complex Systems mission is itself proving a study in complex adaptive learning and all the signs are that the case studies and the teams developing them will make a significant contribution to understanding whether it is possible to find common principles and new models for the management of safer complex systems. The lack of common experience and language at the interface between engineered and non-engineered systems is one area that we believe may be worth exploring in more detail, but it is dangerous to make assumptions and we need the help of a wide community of experts who have relevant experience and fresh insight to offer.”

Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng, Chair of Engineering X Safer Complex Systems, said of the strategy document: “The increasing complexity and interconnectedness of the world we live in has made us all more vulnerable to systemic shocks like the current COVID-19 pandemic. We need to ask ourselves three questions: how can we manage complexity more effectively? How can we find ways to simplify and share knowledge and good practice? And how do we raise awareness and increase competency across engineering disciplines and beyond?

“The Engineering X Safer Complex Systems strategy document is based on our current understanding of this subject area and the priority needs outlined by the mission, but we are learning by doing and we must always be ready to adapt our plans as new learnings arise. As we engage with a wider global community and our understanding of the subject develops, we may need to revise or reprioritise this roadmap to meet the needs of our global complex systems community. We need others to join us on our journey to support society to better manage complexity.”

The case studies commissioned are:

1. Social innovators as a human sensing network solving humanitarian challenges of the 21^st century (Chile)
   Project lead: Matías René Rojas De Luca, Socialab, Chile
2. Cyber–physical system shortfalls in the 2011 Brisbane flood (Australia)
   Project lead: Dr Giuliano Punzo, University of Sheffield, UK
3. Complex systemic failures in the Edinburgh schools case (UK)
   Project lead: Dr Jonathan Gosling, Cardiff University, UK
4. Improving resilience to major safety events in industry (USA, Japan, Australia, Hungary and UK)
   Project lead: Professor Richard Taylor, University of Bristol, UK
5. Ferry disaster provides vital global safety lessons (UK and Belgium)
   Project lead: Professor Chengi Kuo, University of Strathclyde, UK
6. Bexley train crash — a system failure (UK)
   Dr Chris Elliott MBE FREng, Pitchill Consulting, Switzerland
7. Planned adaptive regulation as applied to the Dutch ‘Delta Programme’ (The Netherlands)
   Project lead: Dr Richard Judge, Bartlett Judge Associates, UK
8. The Hatfield derailment – a problem of governance? (UK)
   Project lead: Professor Roger Kemp MBE FREng, Lancaster University, UK
9. A systems approach to reducing train accident risk (UK)
   Project lead: Brian Tomlinson, Network Rail, UK
10. A comparative study of fire risk emergence in informal settlements in Dhaka and Cape Town (South Africa, Bangladesh)
    Project lead: Danielle Antonellis, Kindling, USA
11. Structural integrity management of energy infrastructure (UK)
    Project lead: Dr Yin Jin Janin, TWI, UK
12. Vulnerability and evacuation strategies of rural communities threatened by wildfire (USA, Canada)
    Project lead: Professor Steve Gwynne, Movement Strategies, UK
13. Australian climate extremes and building transport network resilience (Australia)
    Project lead: Dr Kirsten MacAskill, University of Cambridge, UK
14. Understanding the dynamics of an emergent cycling transport system during the COVID-19 pandemic (Colombia)
    Project lead: Professor Andrés Medaglia Gonzalez, Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia
15. Beyond the limits of knowledge — navigating uncertainty in complex systems (International)
    Project lead: Dr Richard Judge, Bartlett Judge Associates, UK
16. Analysing humanitarian supply chain crashes, recovery and alternatives during COVID-19 (International)
    Project lead: Claire Travers, Field Ready, Sweden
17. Systemic failures in nursing home care (Australia)
    Project lead: Professor Dr Joachim Sturmberg, University of Newcastle, Australia
18. Delivering a seasonally agnostic railway (UK)
    Project lead: Dr Brian Haddock, Network Rail, UK
19. Towards A Simpler and Safer Nuclear Sector (UK)
    Project lead: Professor Francis Livens, University of Manchester, UK

More about the case studies—which are due to be completed in late 2021—can be found here.

The case studies and strategy from the Engineering X Safer Complex Systems mission will be published to coincide with a Royal Academy of Engineering online technical briefing How can we tackle the shifting challenges of complex systems? by Professor Roger Kemp, Professor Emeritus at Lancaster University, and Danielle Antonellis, Founder and Executive Director at Kindling. Free to attend, the event will be chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt.

Also being made available are reports commissioned by the Engineering X Safer Complex System mission over the past two years which have informed the current shape of the mission. They include Safer Complex Systems: An Initial Framework report from the University of York; the findings of the Exploring the safety of super-sized structures workshop run in collaboration with University College London and BRE (Building Research Establishment); and a summary of the Safer Complex Systems workshop 2020 convened by Professor Roger Kemp.

Engineers and non-engineers in academia, industry and government with an interest and expertise in safety and complex systems are invited to join the mission’s growing global community to better understand and operate complex systems in safe way. Please contact shelley.stromdale@raeng.org.uk Programme Manager for Safer Complex Systems.

Notes for Editors

1. Engineering X is an international collaboration, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd’s Register Foundation, that brings together some of the world’s leading problem-solvers to address the great challenges of our age. Our global network of expert engineers, academics and business leaders is working to share best practice, explore new technologies, educate and train the next generation of engineers, build capacity, improve safety and deliver impact.

   Engineering X Safer Complex Systems mission was launched in June 2019 to enhance the safety of complex infrastructure systems globally. Safer Complex Systems is governed through a board chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng, Chair of Make UK and former Chair of the Health and Safety Executive.

2. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.
3. Lloyd’s Register Foundation is an independent global charity with a unique structure and an important mission: engineering a safer world. We reduce risk and enhance the safety of the critical infrastructure that modern society relies upon in areas such as energy, transport, and food.

   Our vision is to be known worldwide as a leading supporter of engineering-related research, training and education that makes a real difference in improving the safety of the critical infrastructure on which modern society relies. In support of this, we promote scientific excellence and act as a catalyst working with others to achieve maximum impact. We meet our aims by awarding grants, by direct activity, and through the societal benefit activities of our trading group, which shares our mission. Through our grant making we aim to connect science, safety and society by supporting research of the highest quality and promoting skills and education.

Media enquiries to: Pippa Cox at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 207 766 0745; email: Pippa.Cox@raeng.org.uk

• Sir Lewis Hamilton MBE HonFREng and the Royal Academy of Engineering conclude ten months of research into how to improve the representation of Black people within UK motorsport
• Report identifies barriers to entry including lack of Black role models in STEM teaching positions, and hiring practices within motorsport teams that favour students from a select group of high-ranking universities
• Ten recommendations made including F1 teams implementing a D&I charter, and piloting approaches to increase the number of Black teachers in STEM subjects

Seven-Time Formula One™ World Champion, Sir Lewis Hamilton and the Royal Academy of Engineering today publish The Hamilton Commission report,Accelerating Change: Improving Representation of Black People in UK Motorsport.

The Commission, which conducted its research over a period of ten months, set out to identify the key barriers to the recruitment and progression of Black people in UK motorsport. The research specifically focused on engineering positions within the industry, as they represent a major group of occupations and offer the biggest opportunity for change. Now, through its report, the Commission has provided ten recommendations which aim to address the issues limiting Black students’ progression into engineering careers, as well as barriers within the motorsport industry.

The report research, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering, covered initial data analysis, stakeholder mapping, a literature review in sport, education and employment, as well as in-depth surveying and analysis with youth focus groups and key stakeholders. As a result of this detailed research, an evidence-based report has been crafted which includes chapters exploring Formula 1 and the UK motorsport sector, young Black people’s interest in engineering and motorsport, and the attainment and progression of young Black students in STEM subjects at school, in post-16 education and in higher education leading to motorsport jobs. The Commission, which was co-Chaired by Lewis and Royal Academy of Engineering CEO, Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, also engaged a 14-strong Board of Commissioners from relevant fields including motorsport, politics, education and engineering, who have each helped to inform and shape the report and its findings.

The Commission was launched in June 2020, as a result of Lewis’ ambition to see more people like himself employed within the motorsport industry. Throughout his career as the only Black driver within Formula 1, Lewis hoped that his success would inspire other diverse talent to pursue a career in motorsport. However, that hasn’t been the case, and when reviewing the lack of representation within the end-of-season photo in 2019, Lewis was spurred to take action and proactively change the industry himself. It was then that he engaged the Royal Academy of Engineering to conduct the necessary research into the barriers preventing Black talent from entering the industry and how these barriers could be addressed.

The Commission’s research has focused on the talent pipeline for Black students entering motorsport via engineering, due to the specific challenges they face as a result of their race. These challenges are also reflective of Lewis’ own experiences within school and the motorsport industry. Factors within wider society, some of which are systemic in nature, as well as practices within Formula 1 have been identified as contributing towards a situation in which only 1% employees in Formula 1 are from Black backgrounds. These factors include but are not limited to:

• Hiring practices within motorsport teams that favour students from a select group of high-ranking universities, which many of the existing engineers and recruiting managers also graduated from.
• Geographical factors, which mean opportunities for work experience at places such as Silverstone are too far to travel for students from Black communities in cities and other young people from low-income backgrounds.
• Lower expectations of Black students’ academic abilities leading to lower entries to STEM subjects, such as triple science GCSE – which is often required in order to take STEM subjects at A-Level
• Behaviour management practices in schools that disproportionately affect Black students, including the disproportionately high incidence of temporary and permanent exclusions of young Black Caribbean and mixed White and Black Caribbean ethnicity students
• The lack of Black role models in STEM teaching positions throughout a student’s educational career, including in higher education
• A lack of understanding among young people of the careers that studying engineering can lead to, and a feeling among Black students that motorsport ‘wasn’t for them’.

To help shape the recommendations selected, The Hamilton Commission has identified three strands of action that need to be addressed in order to achieve industry wide change. These strands of action comprise:

• Support and empowerment – engendering a sense of agency among young Black people and supporting progression to engineering careers.
• Accountability and measurement – accountability of those in authority, evidenced through consistent collection and sharing of data.
• Inspiration and engagement – enabling young Black people to visualise what these careers involve and see themselves in these roles.

The Commission has identified ten recommendations addressing these strands, which it believes will have long-lasting and positive impact on the motorsport industry and encourage more young Black students to pursue subjects which lead to careers in engineering. These recommendations include;

• Asking that Formula 1 teams (and other Motorsports organisations) take the lead in implementing a Diversity and Inclusion Charter for motorsport to commit the sector to improve diversity and inclusion across all organisations;
• Calling for Formula 1 teams and other motorsport businesses to broaden access to motorsport by expanding the apprenticeships provision to include higher apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships as an alternate pathway into the sector, as well as availability to paid work placement and work experience schemes;
• Establishment of a new exclusions innovation fund, to develop programmes that address the factors that contribute to the high proportion of students from Black backgrounds being excluded from schools;
• Supporting the piloting of new approaches to increase the number of Black teachers in STEM subjects that lead to careers in engineering, namely mathematics, physics, design and technology, and computing;

• Supporting the creation of scholarship programmes to enable Black graduates from degrees in engineering and allied subjects to progress into specialist motorsport roles;

• Calling for additional STEM activity support to be provided to supplementary schools led by Black community groups across the UK.
• The report, including the full list of recommendations can be accessed via The Hamilton Commission website.

The Commission report serves as the first step in Lewis’ long-term ambition to create tangible change within the industry. The Commission’s research and recommendations have provided him with the insight he was seeking and Lewis has personally committed to carrying forward a number of recommendations through his philanthropic endeavours and will also be working with his team and the wider motorsport industry, as well as third party charities and organisations, to ensure all recommendations are implemented.

Lewis Hamilton says: “Given the right opportunities and support, young people can excel at whatever they put their minds to, but our research shows that many young Black people are being closed out of opportunities within STEM and having their full potential limited. While I have enjoyed a successful career in motorsport, it’s been a lonely path as one of the few Black individuals within Formula 1 and, after fifteen years of waiting for the industry to catch up, I realised I had to take action myself. 

“In order to do that, I needed to understand what was preventing the industry from being as diverse as the world around it. Through the Commission’s research, we can see there are clear meaningful steps the motorsport industry needs to take towards creating a more inclusive environment where diversity can thrive but also that we must tackle the barriers facing Black students that exist throughout their educational journey. Some of these barriers I recognise from my own experiences, but our findings have opened my eyes to just how far reaching these problems are. Now that I’m armed with the Commission’s recommendations, I am personally committed to ensuring they are put into action. I’m so proud of our work to date, but this is really just the beginning.”

Dr. Hayaatun Sillem says: “The Academy has been leading a Diversity and Inclusion programme for the last decade to address the diversity deficit in engineering, and while some positive progress has been made, it remains a source of great concern that only 9% of UK professional engineers are from Black or minority ethnic backgrounds and only 14.5% are women. We were therefore delighted to be part of The Hamilton Commission and to work with Lewis to investigate the specific barriers faced by Black people looking to pursue a career in motorsport and the STEM pathways that lead to it. Engineers shape the world around us – enhancing almost every aspect of our everyday lives from the sport and entertainment we enjoy, to technologies that keep us connected to our family and friends – and it is therefore imperative that they better reflect the diversity of the society they serve and that engineering careers are open to all. The ten recommendations in the Hamilton Commission report are targeted at making that a reality for motorsport – a highly visible sector that depends critically on a technical workforce – and we look forward to working with Lewis and our partners to accelerate the pace of change.”

The Hamilton Commission has been in development since December 2019 but was publicly launched in June 2020 to coincide with the heightened media and public interest in the Black Lives Matter Movement and greater scrutiny of race inequality in society. In the last year, the industry also responded with diversity and inclusion initiatives from the FIA, Formula 1 and Formula 1 teams, such as Mercedes. While The Hamilton Commission supports these individual commitments to progress, through its final report and recommendations it calls on each organisation to work together towards a better industry for future generations.

Notes to editors

Full report and smart article available for download from The Hamilton Commission website.

Third party research was conducted with Cultural Intelligence Hub and ICM and is available to review at www.hamiltoncommission.org.

The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age. www.raeng.org.uk

For further media enquiries, please contact hamiltoncommission@freuds.com

Five young engineers who have been outstandingly successful in their respective fields at an early stage of their careers have each received a prestigious award and a £3,000 prize from the Royal Academy of Engineering. They were presented with their awards from HRH The Princess Royal, Royal Fellow of the Academy, during a specially arranged visit to the Thames Tideway Project in London on 6 July.

All five are winners of the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year competition, awarded by the Academy with support from the Worshipful Company of Engineers.

The overall winner, Dr Marzia Bolpagni, also received the Sir George Macfarlane Medal for excellence in the early stage of her career.

Dr Marzia Bolpagni is Head of Building Information Modelling International at Mace.  A chartered building engineer specialising in digital engineering, Marzia recognised the importance of engineers in helping to prevent disasters after surviving an earthquake. Marzia uses digital representations of built assets to facilitate design, construction, and operation processes to support reliable decisions. Her construction clients have included UK Government Departments and Birmingham Airport.

Marzia has been a member of the UK Building Information Modelling (BIM) Alliance since 2016, and an ambassador since 2018. In this role, she has promoted digital engineering across the UK and Europe. Marzia’s commitment to inspiring the next generation of engineers successfully bridges the gap between industry and academia, she gives talks at international universities and acts as a dissertation supervisor for construction students at University College London, where she is an honorary lecturer. She chairs the EC3 Committee on Modelling and Standards, a position usually covered by senior academics. Marzia also acts as Assistant Editor of the BIM Dictionary, coordinating 120+ international volunteers in translating complex concepts into accessible formats.

Since 2019, Marzia has been a member of the ACE Digital Transformation Group and she is lead author of a European standard (BS EN 17412-1) on digital engineering. Her work is internationally renowned and she has been a keynote speaker in 20 countries. She has received multiple awards for her innovative approach to design, construction and operation, including the Women Engineering Ingenious and Digital Innovation Change Maker of the Year by Mace.

The other winners of the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year competition are:

Dr Ben Fletcher is a Physical Design Engineer at Graphcore Ltd, responsible for the physical design of several key components on their flagship ‘Colossus’ series of processors to deal with accelerating AI workloads. Ben is part of the team that developed the largest ever single-die silicon chip earlier this year, the 7nm CMOS Colossus MK2 IPU.

Prior to joining Graphcore in 2020, Ben previously studied for a PhD in the Arm-ECS Research Centre at the University of Southampton where he led the COILS project for two years. His research centred on investigating novel approaches for cost-effective three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D-IC) design, including the first ever 3D-stacked Arm processor with wireless inter-tier links.

His research has been published extensively, including several leading international journals and conference publications which have been downloaded over 4000 times. He has also received numerous accolades including the STEM for Britain/IEEE Communications Society Prize, an IET Postgraduate Prize, and the University of Southampton’s Doctoral College Research Award.

Dr Thomas Fudge is the co-founder and CEO of WASE, a leading wastewater to energy startup, which provides decentralised wastewater treatment and clean energy for food and drink manufactures and low-resource communities in the UK and Kenya.

Founded in 2017, WASE has developed a new Electro-Methanogenic Reactor, enabling decentralised resource recovery from industrial and community organic waste and wastewater Since then, the company has received multiple accolades including the UK Energy Innovation Award 2017, Climate Launchpad UK Winner 2017 and Shell LiveWire Smarter Future Award 2018.

Despite the challenges presented by Covid-19, Thomas’ leadership allowed WASE to exceed in its plan to secure an additional £500,000 in funding, enabling the team to grow from 6 to 15 and doubled its R&D efforts. The increased productivity enabled the company to sell its first units one year ahead of schedule.

In 2017, Thomas won the UK national ‘3 Minute Thesis’ competition with his presentation on Distributed sanitation for developing communities with energy and nutrient recovery; spoke at the Falling Walls Conference in Berlin talking about Breaking the Wall of Sanitation; and gave an invited presentation at the World Bank’s Water Week in Washington in 2019.

Dr Gita Khalili Moghaddam is CEO of TumourVue Ltd, which she co-founded in 2018 to address a pronounced unmet need in cancer surgery. Based at the University of Cambridge’s Biomedical Innovation Hub and with funding from the Medtech Accelerator, TumourVue’s technology combines real-time imaging and AI to distinguish a viable tumour from normal brain tissue. Gita innovated the system to improve outcomes for cancer patients undergoing surgery by allowing the surgeon to identify the edges of the tumour accurately, to help preserve as much healthy tissue as possible.

Having obtained her PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Cambridge in 2017, Gita is currently on secondment at GSK Global Health until 2023 as a UKRI Innovation Scholar, taking a leading role in the use of AI in tuberculosis drug development.

In 2019, she was awarded a prestigious Borysiewicz Biomedical Sciences Fellowship at the University of Cambridge in recognition of her outstanding research in the field of biomedical engineering. As an academic entrepreneur, she has been widely recognised as one of the top 18 women in AI & Data by Innovate UK (2019), a BioBeat Mover & Shaker in BioBusiness (2020) and a top contender for Cofinitive 21toWatch (2021).

Dr Emilio Martínez-Pañeda is a lecturer and Research Fellow at Imperial College London, where he has led the Mechanics of Infrastructure Materials research group since 2019.

Emilio is renowned for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of material-environment interactions and their implications for structural integrity, spanning a wide range of applications – from Lithium-Ion battery degradation to iceberg calving models to improve sea-level rise projections. He has combined mechanics with chemistry to predict complex phenomena such as localised corrosion, hydrogen embrittlement and corrosion fatigue. Such research could help to save lives as environmental effects are behind 90% of catastrophic failures and govern the lifespan of most engineering components.

Emilio was previously a Research Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Micromechanics, University of Cambridge where he was awarded two prestigious fellowships: the Research Fellowship of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition 1851 and the Marie Curie Individual Fellowship.

His contributions have been recognised through numerous awards including the Acta Student Award, IMechE Prestige Award and RILEM’s 2021 Gustavo Colonnetti Medal.

Notes for Editors

1. RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year. With the generous support of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, the Royal Academy of Engineering makes five awards of £3,000 each year to UK engineers in full time higher education, research or industrial employment, who have demonstrated excellence in the early stage of their career (defined as less than ten years since graduation from their first degree in engineering). There is no restriction on the discipline base of the individual nominated.
2. Sir George Macfarlane Medal. The Award is made in memory of Sir George Macfarlane (1916-2007), one of the founding Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering. The Medal will be presented to the overall winner of the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year awardees, as selected by the Academy’s Awards Committee.
3. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. 

In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public.

Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

For more information please contact:

Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering

T: +44 207 766 0636

E:  Jane Sutton

Chemical Engineer Noël N’guessan has won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2021 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation with a biowaste equipment innovation for smallholder farmers in West Africa to efficiently manage and generate income from biowaste. N’guessan is the second Ivorian to win the Africa Prize, and the first to win with an Ivorian-based innovation.

N’guessan and his team designed and patented Kubeko to assist smallholder farmers and their cooperatives to generate more income from the by-products of their harvests, without any additional labour. Kubeko is a set of low-cost biowaste processing equipment; its composter and biodigester are both specifically designed to ferment agricultural post-harvest by-products into solid and liquid compost, and cooking gas.

“Biowaste represents two to five times the quantity of crops or produce sold, amounting to 30 million tonnes of waste disposed of annually in Côte d’Ivoire,” said N’guessan. “By repurposing this waste, Kubeko can help Ivorians generate extra income, dramatically improving the lives of thousands of farmers and their families.”

N’guessan wins the first prize of £25,000 (19 058 427,00 West African CFA). At the virtual awards ceremony held on 8 July 2021, four finalists delivered presentations, before Africa Prize judges and a live audience voted for the most promising engineering innovation.

“We really appreciated the professionalism of the APEI, adding value to our businesses. It was hard work, and share this Award with our entire team,” said N’guessan.

The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014, is Africa’s biggest prize dedicated to engineering innovation, and has a proven track record of identifying successful engineering entrepreneurs. Now in its seventh year, it supports talented sub-Saharan African entrepreneurs with engineering innovations that address crucial problems in their communities in a new and appropriate way.

Since being shortlisted for the Africa Prize, the Kubeko team has made progress in reducing its production costs from US$800 to US$700, making their products affordable. The team has installed two biodigesters running on cassava farms, with 50 composters installed to date on cocoa, palm oil and mango farms. Kubeko has also been commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development in Côte d’Ivoire to train stakeholders on the use of Kubeko, as part of the department’s national composting and biowaste strategy.

“We were very impressed with the Kubeko solution which has huge potential to impact many lives of farmers in West Africa,” said Africa Prize Judge Ibilola Amao. “We believe Kubeko will contribute greatly to sustainable energy and farming in the region.

Sixteen shortlisted Africa Prize entrepreneurs from eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa received eight months of training and mentoring – conducted virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic – during which they developed their business plans and learned to market their innovations. The group received coaching on communicating effectively, focusing on customers and approaching investors with confidence.

The Africa Prize also exposes and connects the shortlist to individuals and networks in the UK and across Africa who can accelerate their business and technology development – from fellow entrepreneurs and mentors to potential investors and suppliers.

The three runners up, who each receive £10,000, are:

• BlueAvo, Indira Tsengiwe from South Africa – a digital platform on which African creatives can collaborate and sell services as an agency-alternative that is rich in diversity, and places African creatives at the world’s fingertips/
• Make3D Medical, Juka Fatou Darboe from The Gambia – uses 3D printing to create customised orthopaedic equipment for medical institutions and their patients.
• Social Lender, Faith Adesemowo from Nigeria – a financial services solution that uses social reputation scoring to provide credit scores to those who would otherwise not qualify for formal financial services/

In addition to the main prizes awarded, the remaining 12 innovators from the 2021 shortlist pitched their innovations to a live audience who voted for the pitch that showed the most promise and potential for impact. Yusuf Bilesanmi was selected as the inaugural winner of the Africa Prize’s One-to-Watch Award of £5,000. This Award recognises the potential of Bilesanmi’s innovation, ShiVent, a low-cost, non-electric and non-invasive ventilator for patients with respiratory difficulties.

“ShiVent does not require electricity, is easy to install, non-invasive and oxygen efficient, and our belief is that it can help save lives when more expensive or oxygen-intensive technologies can’t get to patients,” said Bilesanmi.

To date, the 101 Africa Prize alumni businesses have raised more than 14 million USD in grants and equity and created more than 1,500 new jobs, with over 50% of these going to women and a significant proportion to disabled people and youth.

The alumni are projected to impact 3 million lives within the next 5 years. The Africa Prize is currently seeking partners to help reach millions more. Being part of the Africa Prize network presents a unique opportunity to support the brightest minds in tackling the greatest global challenges, and improving economic prosperity and quality of life. Contact development.team@raeng.org.uk to see how you can be part of building a sustainable future for all.

The other 12 candidates shortlisted for the Africa Prize 2021 were:

• Aevhas, Jacob Azundah from Nigeria – a high-efficiency machine used to process cassava roots into the West African diet staple, garri.

• Biopackaging, Armelle Sidje from Cameroon – a sustainable manufacturing process that transforms banana and plantain stems to biodegradable paper packaging products.
• CodeLn, Elohor Thomas from Nigeria – an automated tech recruitment platform that supports software engineering recruitment by connecting companies with talented people in the field and helps test their coding abilities.
• Dissolv Bioplastic, Tshepo Mangoele from South Africa – a bioplastic made from plant waste material, which is compostable and dissolves in water at pre-determined rates.
• I3S, Marie Ndieguene from Senegal – a sustainably made and affordable storage space solution made from diverted landfill waste, designed to solve the problem of post-harvest loss in agriculture.
• Jumeni Field Service Software, Eyram Amedzor from Ghana – software that assists service-based businesses by providing a three-part cloud-based application to help increase the productivity of their field teams.
• Mkono-1, Dr Atish Shah from Tanzania – a locally 3D-printed prosthetic hand that provides an affordable solution for people living with upper limb amputations.
• Orbit Health, Pazion Cherinet from Ethiopia – a digital health platform that manages and stores patient data and dispenses medication, allowing for seamless continuity of care.
• Reeddi, Olugbenga Olufemi Olubanjo from Nigeria – an energy system used to provide clean, reliable and affordable electricity to households and businesses operating in energy-poor communities.
• RealDrip, Taofeek Olalekan from Nigeria – an intravenous therapy solution combining the Internet of Things and AI to monitor dosages, flow rates and intake time.
• ShiVent, Yusuf Bilesanmi from Nigeria – a low-cost, non-electric and non-invasive ventilator for patients with respiratory difficulties.
• SuaCode.ai, George Boateng from Ghana – a smartphone application that uses artificial intelligence to teach coding remotely.

Note to editors:

A full set of photographs and b-roll of the entrepreneurs can be found here.

1. About the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation
   The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014, is Africa’s biggest prize dedicated to developing African innovators, and assisting them to maximise their impact. It awards crucial commercialisation support to ambitious African innovators developing scalable engineering solutions to address local challenges, demonstrating the importance of engineering as an enabler of improved quality of life and economic development.

   An eight-month period of tailored training and mentoring culminates in a showcase event where a winner is selected to receive £25,000, along with three runners-up who are each awarded £10,000. The 12 remaining shortlisted candidates also compete for the public’s vote for the One-to-Watch award of £5,000.

   The 2021 Africa Prize is generously supported by the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund and The Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund. Further information can be found here:

2. About the Royal Academy of Engineering
   The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age. 

For media queries and interview requests, please contact:

Africa
Anzet du Plessis, Proof Africa on behalf of the Royal Academy of Engineering
anzet@proofafrica.co.za / ben@proofafrica.co.za
+27 83 557 2322 / +27 64 742 0880

UK and International
Rachel Ng, April Six on behalf of the Royal Academy of Engineering
africaprize@aprilsix.com
+44 7485 317 148