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

• DnaNudge was at the forefront of the nation’s COVID-19 efforts, providing vital testing services for NHS hospitals
• The MacRobert Award is the most prestigious and longest-running prize for engineering innovation in the UK

DnaNudge has been named as the winner of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2021 MacRobert Award. The London start-up has been honoured for the development of its pioneering consumer genetics technology, pivoting and adapting the technology to deliver a rapid, lab-free RT-PCR COVID-19 test to NHS hospitals.

In August 2020, the UK government placed a major order with DnaNudge to supply the Department of Health and Social Care with CovidNudge test kits for use in NHS hospitals across the UK. Now also in use in care homes and supporting the return of the arts sector, the test can accurately detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus from saliva samples on-site in just over an hour – eliminating the need for a laboratory.

The latest arts institution to benefit from DnaNudge’s COVID-19 testing services is the Royal Opera House – home of The Royal Ballet and one of the world’s greatest opera companies. DnaNudge is delivering regular pool testing on-site to performers and staff at the iconic venue in Covent Garden, to support the Royal Opera House’s 2021/22 programme of live music, dance and theatre events – its first full season since 2019. The Royal Opera House joins the London Symphony Orchestra, Glyndebourne Festival and other leading arts and cultural organisations that are using DnaNudge’s rapid, lab-free RT-PCR test to support the safe re-opening of the UK’s cultural sector as the UK’s lockdown restrictions begin to be lifted.

Based in central London at the Imperial College London Translation and Innovation Hub in White City, DnaNudge was created by biomedical engineer Regius Professor Chris Toumazou and geneticist Dr Maria Karvela.

The DnaNudge winning team includes:

• Professor Christofer Toumazou FREng FRS, CEO
• Dr Maria Karvela, CSO
• Dr Caroline Golden, Clinical Research Manager
• Josef Cicinski, UK Retail Store Manager
• David West, COO

Professor Chris Toumazou FREng FRS, Co-Founder & CEO, DnaNudge said:

“We’re absolutely delighted to be named the winner of the 2021 MacRobert Award, joining the ranks of some of the UK’s most innovative and world-changing engineers. The past year has been challenging for all, but the determination and commitment of the entire DnaNudge team to get behind our health service and deliver a truly life-saving solution has been incredible. We look forward to expanding the capabilities of our transformative genetic testing platform to address other major global health challenges, including in the area of oncology and STDs. This is just the beginning of our technology’s capabilities.”

Managing lifestyles on your wrist

The CovidNudge rapid test technology was adapted in record time from DnaNudge’s existing consumer DNA testing service, developed to address nutrition and lifestyle-influenced health conditions affecting people across the world, such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

DnaNudge has created the world’s first service to use consumers’ own DNA plus lifestyle factors to ‘nudge’ people towards healthier and more personalised choices while shopping. The DnaNudge Nutrition service analyses and maps users’ genetic profile to key nutrition-related health traits such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol – enabling customers to be guided by their DNA towards healthier eating.

DnaNudge’s Lab-in-Cartridge innovation allows consumers to provide a simple cheek swab in-store or posted from home. In just over an hour, DnaNudge’s NudgeBox portable analyser maps the user’s genetic profile to key nutrition-related health traits. Using the wrist-worn DnaBand – which also measures sitting time – or using the DnaNudge mobile app, people are then able to scan food products sold in UK supermarkets to find out whether the nutritional contents are a good match for their individual biology, effectively shopping with your DNA and lifestyle.

The MacRobert Award judges commented on the simplicity and usability of the DnaNudge technology and its potential to make a significant difference to the health and wellbeing of the nation moving forward.

Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award judging panel, said:

“DnaNudge is an excellent example of how the UK engineering community adapted to be at the forefront of the global efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Its role in supporting the government with its testing capabilities will have gone a long way to helping to understand and contain the virus. Looking towards the future, this technology knows no limits, helping consumers to take control of their health and lifestyle and make informed dietary decisions, with positive long-term implications.

“The MacRobert Award has recognised many fundamental engineering advances, such as the CT scanner, which have truly changed the medical world. I am delighted that DnaNudge joins this group, and I look forward to seeing DnaNudge’s technology evolve in years to come, since widespread take-up of this technology will help to build a healthier nation, empowering people to take a proactive role in managing their lifestyle and future health.”

Founded in 1969, the MacRobert Award is overseen by the Royal Academy of Engineering and is the UK’s longest running engineering prize. It endorses engineering achievements that demonstrate outstanding innovation, tangible societal benefit and proven commercial success. DnaNudge will receive the signature MacRobert Award gold medal and a £50,000 cash prize, joining the pioneers behind innovations such as the Harrier Jump Jet, the Raspberry Pi micro-computer and the CT scanner.

Notes to editors

1. MacRobert Award for engineering innovation
   First presented in 1969, the MacRobert Award is widely regarded as the most coveted in the industry, honouring the winning organisation with a gold medal and the team members with a cash prize of £50,000. Founded by the MacRobert Trust, the award is presented and run by the Royal Academy of Engineering, with support from the Worshipful Company of Engineers.
2. 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. The MacRobert Award finalist teams:
   – Creo Medical: Chris Hancock, CTO & Founder, Craig Gulliford, CEO, Steve Morris, former COO, Dr Nuwan Dharmasiri, Principal RF and Microwave Engineer, Sandra Swain, Principal Engineer.
   – DnaNudge: Professor Christofer Toumazou FREng FRS, CEO, Dr Maria Karvela, CSO, Dr Caroline Golden, Clinical Research Manager, Josef Cicinski, UK Retail Store Manager, David West, COO.
   – PragmatIC: Scott White, CEO, Richard Price, CTO, Ken Williamson, COO, Catherine Ramsdale, SVP Technology, Neil Davies, VP Process.
4. The MacRobert Award 2021 Judging Panel
   – Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS (Chair of judges). Former Cavendish Professor of Physics, University of Cambridge; Founder, Cambridge Display Technology
   – Naomi Climer CBE FREng. Non Executive Director; Former President Media Cloud Services, Sony; Vice President, Royal Academy of Engineering
   – Dr Andy Harter CBE DL FREng. Chairman, Cambridge Network; Founder and Group CEO, RealVNC
   – Professor Nick Jennings CB FREng. Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise), Imperial College London
   – Professor Dame Julia King, The Baroness Brown of Cambridge DBE FREng FRS. Chair, The Carbon Trust
   – Professor Gordon Masterton DL OBE FREng FRSE. Chair of Future Infrastructure, University of Edinburgh; Former Vice-President, Jacobs
   – Professor Sir John McCanny CBE FREng FRS. Regius Professor of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast Professor
   – Phil Nelson CBE FREng. Professor of Acoustics, University of Southampton
   – Dr Liane Smith FREng. Director, Larkton Ltd; former SVP Digital Solutions, Wood Group
   – Professor Sir Saeed Zahedi OBE RDI FREng. Technical Director, Blatchford; Visiting Professor, University of Bournemouth
5. DnaNudge is the developer of the world’s first service to use consumers’ own DNA plus lifestyle factors to nudge people towards healthier choices while shopping. The DnaNudge service analyses and maps users’ genetic profile to key nutrition-related health traits such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol, enabling customers to be guided by their DNA towards healthier eating. The service has been developed by world-renowned biomedical engineer Regius Professor Chris Toumazou FRS and published geneticist Dr Maria Karvela.

   This ground-breaking in-store DNA testing service created to address an epidemic – obesity and Type 2 diabetes – has now been successfully adapted for the fight against a pandemic, with the development of the rapid, lab-free CovidNudge RT-PCR test. CovidNudge can accurately detect COVID-19 and other viruses in just over an hour, without the need for a laboratory, and is now in use in the UK’s National Health Service.

Three of the UK’s leading young engineering innovators will each receive one of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s most prestigious individual awards this month for their pioneering developments that have enabled world-beating commercial products ranging from secure RFID monitoring of tools and supplies to enhanced medical diagnostics and haptic technology for use in touch-free displays and entertainment.

Dr Tom Carter, CTO of Ultraleap, Dr Andrew Lynn, CEO of Fluidics Analytics and Dr Sithamparanathan Sabesan, CEO of PervasID Ltd, will each receive the Academy’s Silver Medal at the Academy’s Awards Celebration in London on Tuesday 13 July 2021.

Professor Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FREng, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Committee, says: “Our three Silver medallists all demonstrate the true spirit of this award. They have each made an outstanding personal contribution to British engineering and its international reputation in their different fields, and they have all founded highly successful companies to harness their innovations in ways that boost the UK economy and create jobs – and also help to improve people’s lives.”

Dr Tom Carter, CTO of Ultraleap 

Dr Tom Carter invented a technology that uses ultrasound to create tactile sensations on bare hands. Sound waves from a collection of small ultrasonic speakers are focused onto the user’s hands, causing the skin to vibrate and elicit the sensation of touch. 

His groundbreaking technology enables entirely new user interfaces and experiences, making interaction with virtual objects and applications possible. The technology can be used in any market where a user interacts with a device or appliance. It’s recently been used to demonstrate automotive safety with Groupe PSA and the DS Aero Sport Lounge Concept Car, and for immersive entertainment with LEGO, where participants could feel and build with virtual LEGO bricks in mid-air. 

Dr Carter was inspired by the commercial viability of gesture recognition as a new way to interact with machines during his undergraduate degree at the University of Bristol. He wanted to find a way to add the sense of touch so that users could feel the virtual objects that they were interacting with, without having to wear gloves or hold controllers.  

The core innovation behind Carter’s mid-air haptic solution is based on complex patented algorithms that carefully control ultrasound, projecting tactile sensations directly onto a user’s hands. He co-founded Ultrahaptics Limited in November 2013.  

In May 2019, Ultrahaptics acquired world-leading hand-tracking company Leap Motion. It subsequently rebranded to Ultraleap, where Carter remains CTO and continues to lead the company in all technology advancements. Carter won the Colin Campbell Mitchell award with his two co-inventors in 2016. 

Dr Andrew Lynn, CEO of Fluidics Analytics 

Dr Andrew Lynn is a materials engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He has founded four engineering companies based around his innovations, and brought several technologies to market, including a regenerative medical implant for cartilage and bone repair.

In his current role as CEO of Fluidics Analytics, Dr Lynn has been responsible for leading the company’s progression from a promising idea, through product development, to producing research and diagnostic products for characterising protein interactions. Two of these products have been launched commercially and one has made fundamental contributions to breakthroughs in the understanding of the mechanisms of action of drugs for Alzheimer’s Disease. The products have also enabled a 40-patient clinical study to be conducted at University Hospital Zurich into how antibodies protect the body against COVID-19. The clinical study was featured on BBC News in October 2020. 

In addition to the impact it has made in medicine, Fluidics Analytics has created 96 full-time jobs, filed or licensed 19 patents and attracted £35 million in investment. 

Dr Lynn’s work has resulted in over 20 peer-reviewed publications and eight international patent families. He has been recognised with an ACES Academic Enterprise Award and a spot in MIT Technology Review magazine’s prestigious list of the world’s top innovators under 35. Chondromimetic, an orthopaedic implant that Dr Lynn developed during his PhD, was a finalist for the MacRobert Award 2009. 

Dr Sithamparanathan Sabesan, CEO of PervasID Ltd 

PervasID, backed by leading strategic investors such as Stanley Black & Decker, is the result of Dr Sabesan’s ground-breaking work as a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. His work in battery-free radio frequency identification (RFID) tag tracking has been internationally recognised and has resulted in four patents. As founder and CEO, Dr Sabesan successfully grew PervasID from its inception to become a global enterprise, providing transformative solutions to healthcare, industrial, security, retail and supply chain and logistics sectors with a complete product suite of the world’s most accurate passive RFID readers. 

RFID systems use electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and wirelessly track tags which are attached to assets. Battery-free RFID tags contain electronically stored information and can be linked up as components of intelligent networks, with sensors to determine their location from a distance. RFID tags conventionally suffer from ‘dead spots’ where tags are not detected well within the range of the reader. PervasID overcomes this problem and achieves near 100% accuracy in detecting battery-free tags to less than one metre over wide areas. In commercial trials against all other competitors, PervasID achieved more than 99% tag detection accuracy over a 20-metre distance compared with 80% achieved over 2-metre to 3-metre distance using conventional approaches. 

Dr Sabesan’s customers include the largest aircraft manufacturers, Stanley Black & Decker, blue chip retailers and NHS hospitals including Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London. Stanley Black & Decker also use the tags to track supplies from their tool cabinets used by aircraft manufacturers. Each cabinet contains over 1,000 tools, and it can result in serious safety incidents if any are left inside an aircraft. It is estimated that Foreign Object Debris (FOD) costs the aviation industry $13 Billion per year in direct and indirect costs, including flight delays, plane changes and fuel inefficiencies. In healthcare, PervasID solutions are being deployed in NHS hospitals for tracking surgical instruments to enhance decontamination and sterilisation processes and for tracking hospital assets to ensure that mission critical medical devices are available at the right place and time, for robust and efficient care. The need for this level of traceability of medical devices has been particularly evident in the COVID-19 pandemic. The solution is predicted to save £billions for NHS hospitals and will save lives. 

Dr Sabesan won a Royal Academy of Engineering Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year award, the Sir George Macfarlane Medal 2016 for excellence in the early stage of his career, an Engineering Enterprise Fellowship and most recently in 2021 has been awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation. 

Notes for Editors

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

Tel. +44 207 766 0636

email:  Jane Sutton

The Royal Academy of Engineering is delighted to announce that applications are open for round 16 of its Ingenious Programme, with funding of between £3,000 and £30,000 available for public engagement awards for projects that transform imaginative ideas into inspiring activities that will connect the public with engineers and engineering.  

Engineering will be at the forefront of solutions to the world’s greatest challenges including the global climate emergency and the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ingenious awards give engineers the opportunity to show the public the wonders of engineering in action and inspire the next generation of engineers.    

Ingenious projects that are currently underway include Engineering In Your Future: Sustainable City. In this project, engineers from Swansea University are developing several public engagement activities focusing on the role of engineering in working towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including the diverse perspectives required to aid innovation and creative thinking. 

In another project, BLAST Fest Youth Media Fellowships: Grand Challenges, Local Goals is engaging engineers with young creatives to explore the role of Engineering in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Working with engineers and mentors, four young creatives will explore the role of Engineering in responding to such challenges and how we can imagine, build, and communicate an inclusive economy and sustainable future for all.  

We prioritise projects that reach diverse and underrepresented audiences including communities in the top 20% most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK. This could be in formal educational settings or informal settings such as museums, libraries, community centres, Girl Guides and STEM clubs. 

Ingenious panel chair Professor Anthony Finkelstein CBE FREng said “In this past year we have seen on so many occasions how engineering and engineers are fundamental to providing solutions to the global challenges we face today. The Ingenious awards are a fantastic opportunity for engineers to showcase their work to the public, and we especially encourage creative ideas that will reach a large variety of audiences and focus on many different engineering areas.” 

We are looking for projects that will reach diverse and underrepresented communities across the whole of the UK. The Ingenious awards programme aims to: 

• Inspire creative public engagement with engineering projects  
• Empower engineers to share their stories, passion and expertise with wider audiences and develop their communication and engagement skills 
• Raise awareness of the diversity, nature and impact of engineering among people of all ages and backgrounds 

• Provide opportunities for engineers to engage with members of the public from groups currently underrepresented in engineering 

Ingenious has funded over 200 projects to date, providing opportunities for approximately 7,000 engineers to take part in public engagement activities, to gain skills in communication and to help bring engineering to the very centre of society. Ingenious projects have reached over 3 million members of the public. 

Applications are welcome from engineers and creative or public engagement professionals keen to explore ways to provide public engagement training and opportunities for engineers and to engage new groups of people with their work. 

For more information on how to apply, please see https://www.raeng.org.uk/grants-prizes/grants/ingenious-grant

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.

For more information please contact: Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 207 766 0636; email: jane.sutton@raeng.org.uk

• Female innovators make up three out of four finalists for Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, as Gambian and Ivorian-based innovators feature for the first time, alongside Nigeria and South Africa

Engineering innovations to tackle inequality in the media industry, provide financial services to people who have no access to banking, 3D print customisable orthopaedic equipment for patients, and help farmers generate income from biowaste, have been selected as finalists for the prestigious Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation 2021.

The four finalists – three of whom are women – from Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, South Africa, and The Gambia were selected from a shortlist of 16 African innovators for their ability to use engineering to solve problems for African communities. They were chosen after receiving eight months of training, mentorship and support through the Africa Prize, with expert volunteers providing bespoke, one-on-one support on topics including business plans, scaling, recruitment, IP protection, financing, commercialisation, and more. For the first time, Gambian and Ivorian-based innovators are in the running. Both South Africa and Nigeria have seen local innovators win the Africa Prize in previous years.

“All 16 entrepreneurs have developed innovative and sustainable solutions to problems faced by Africans,” said John Lazar. “It has been a remarkable experience to learn about all 16 innovations in the past eight months. These four finalists represent an impressive potential for impact in Africa.”

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 in maximising their impact. It awards crucial commercialisation support to ambitious African innovators developing scalable engineering solutions to address local challenges, demonstrating how engineering can enable improved quality of life and economic development.

An eight-month period of tailored training and mentoring will culminate 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 Africa Prize is generously supported by the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), having been supported by The Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund from 2014 to 2020.

The 2021 Africa Prize winner will be selected on 8 July 2021. Local supporters, industry peers, engineering and entrepreneurial enthusiasts as well as media are encouraged to join the free, virtual event. Speakers will include Charles Murito, Director of Sub Saharan Africa, Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google, as well as Sarah Burns, CEO and co-founder of NIA Crowdfund. Samuel Njuguna, founder of Chura and an alumnus of the Africa Prize, will also speak. For more information and to register for the event, click here.

Judges, mentors and expert reviewers for the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation have volunteered a combined 2,300 hours of support to entrepreneurs across the continent since the prize was established – estimated at well over £1 million in support.

The Africa Prize runs annually and is designed to bring together individual innovators changing their communities, to form a network that can transform a continent. Alumni of the Africa Prize are projected to impact over three million lives in the next five years and have already created more than 1,500 jobs and raised more than $14 million in grants and equity. The 2022 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation is now open for entries. Individuals and small teams living and working in sub-Saharan Africa who have a scalable engineering innovation that can solve a local challenge are invited to enter. Interested entrants can find more information here. The deadline for entries is 20 July 2021.

This year’s finalists are:

• BlueAvo, a digital platform that connects creative brands and people in the media industry with local content creators, providing a digital workspace for collaboration and project development. South African business specialist, Indira Tsengiwe, developed the platform in response to the need for innovation in the African media industry, creating opportunities for youth, small businesses and emerging markets where large agencies once dominated the industry. BlueAvo has used the support from the Africa Prize to launch online across Africa, and set a target of 10,000 creative users by the end of 2021. The team has also generated multiple revenue streams, enabling the innovation to attract more investors.

• In Côte d’Ivoire, KubeKo helps Ivorian smallholder farmers to efficiently manage and monetise biowaste. Chemical engineer Noël N’guessan developed Kubeko to improve the lives of thousands of farmers and their families to generate more income from the by-products of their harvests, without any additional labour. The Kubeko composter and biodigester are both specifically designed to ferment agricultural post-harvest by-products. 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. The machine is prefabricated for easy on-site assembly and is produced in two forms – a composter and a biodigester – producing solid and liquid compost and cooking gas.
• From Nigeria, Social Lender is a digital financial services solution that uses a Social Reputation Score to provide access to financing. Finance specialist, Faith Adesemowo, created the digital solution to give access to Africans including farmers, students and small business owners who lack access to formal financial services. Five years on, the platform has impacted the lives of more than 100,000 customers in Nigeria and South Africa. Social Lender partners with service providers like banks, microfinance institutions, micro-insurance companies, and agricultural input companies to offer facilities based on Social Reputation Scores.
• Make3D Medical uses 3D printing to create customised orthopaedic equipment for medical institutions and their patients. Mechanical and electronics engineer Juka Fatou Darboe from The Gambia has identified areas where Make3D Medical devices can be used as an alternative to surgery, and where they can be used to modify existing devices to make them more culturally acceptable, more physician- and patient-friendly, and better suited to local climates than Plaster of Paris. The company also helps medical professionals learn how to print their own components, providing a package of training, hardware, software, raw materials, and 3D designs.

Left to right: Indira Tsengiwe; Noël N’guessan; Juka Fatou Darboe, and Faith Adesemowo  

The remaining 12 candidates from the 2021 Africa Prize shortlist are now eligible for a brand new One-to-Watch Award worth £5,000, which will be judged on the strength of their business pitch by the audience. They will compete for the public’s vote at the Africa Prize final on 8 July, which can be booked here free of charge. They are:

• 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.

Notes to editors

A full set of photographs 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 Africa Prize is generously supported by the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund, having been supported by The Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund from 2014 to 2020. Further information can be found here:
   The Shell Centenary Scholarship Fund
   Global Challenges Research Fund

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 317148

The Royal Academy of Engineering has partnered with BecomingX and Amazon to release a new series of refreshing and honest films profiling pioneering women engineers. The first three films, which are being released to coincide with International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2021, feature engineering heroes Ursula Burns FREng, Professor Sue Black and Dame Stephanie Shirley FREng.

The films celebrate engineering and technology trailblazers, uncovering the inspiring stories behind their success and the challenges they overcame.  In a bid to inspire the next generation of young people, from all genders, ethnicities and parts of society, as well as challenge public perceptions of the profession, the films will be shared on social media channels, as well as circulated to schools through the BecomingX Education Programme and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Connecting STEM Teachers Network.

The first three stories in the series being launched on International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) are:

• Ursula Burns FREng, who became the first African American woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Xerox Corporation.
• Professor Sue Black OBE, who became a professor of computer science and technology, and award-winning computer scientist, Amazon bestselling author (for her book ‘Saving Bletchley Park’) and technology evangelist, after leaving school at 16 and fleeing an unsafe home.
• Dame Stephanie Shirley CH DBE FREng, who founded a pioneering software company providing job opportunities for women with dependents and became the first woman president of the British Computer Society having arrived in Britain as an unaccompanied child refugee.

Women are still significantly underrepresented in engineering and technology. Engineering UK’s latest analysis estimates that only 14.5%^[1] of those in engineering jobs are women and UCAS data on university application and acceptance figures for the 2020 cycle^[2] highlighted that women represent just 18% and 16% of accepted applications to engineering and computing degrees respectively. At the current rate of progress, gender parity among entrants to engineering degrees will not be achieved until 2085. INWED is the world’s biggest initiative celebrating the achievements of women in engineering and allied roles.

Entitled ‘Engineering Heroes’ the films are the first in a new This is Engineering series made possible by a partnership between the Royal Academy of Engineering, Amazon and BecomingX. The series complements the existing This is Engineering campaign, which features real young engineers who have followed what they loved into engineering, and joins the established BecomingX series of films featuring Olympic Gold Medallists, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and Oscar winners. 

This launch extends the Academy’s partnership with Amazon to attract young people from all backgrounds into engineering and computer science careers as part of Amazon Future Engineer, Amazon’s comprehensive childhood-to-career programme aiming to inspire, educate and enable children and young adults from lower-income backgrounds to try computer science and pursue careers in this field.

Earlier this year the Academy and Amazon expanded the Amazon Future Engineer bursary scheme to support women students from low-income households studying computer science and related engineering courses at UK universities. Amazon is also supporting a number of Royal Academy of Engineering initiatives, including the national Connecting STEM Teachers programme, a support network for teachers across all STEM subjects that ensures they have the knowledge and confidence to engage a greater number and wider spectrum of school students with STEM. The programme works with 1,000 schools and operates across all regions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

 ‘Engineering Heroes‘ can be viewed at www.thisisengineering.org.uk/heroes.  Other films in the series will be released later in 2021.

Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, comments:

“The Academy, Amazon and BecomingX share an ambition to inspire and support young people to become the next generation of engineers and computer scientists, and through this new series of

This is Engineering films we will be telling the stories of some of the most inspiring engineering role models in the world. Engineering is a fantastic career if you want to make a difference, improve people’s lives and shape the future. By sharing these powerful stories, we want to inspire many more people from all parts of society to become engineers: engineering is for everyone and we need our engineering community to better reflect the society we serve.

“This year, International Women in Engineering Day celebrates ‘engineering heroes’ at a time when technology has helped us navigate very challenging circumstances.  Our films feature women engineers who are technology trailblazers as well as engineering heroes.  Ursula, Sue and Dame Stephanie have each overcome personal difficulties and defied stereotypes to reach the top of their fields, achieving many firsts along the way. They are true pioneers of our profession who have paved the way for current and future generations of women engineers to follow.”

Lauren Kisser, Director at Amazon’s Development Centre in Cambridge and head of Alexa AI, said:

“I’ve been lucky to have worked in technology for my entire career,  and have innovated on some fascinating engineering programmes. I am a passionate advocate for engineering and STEM skills, especially among young women and girls. By sharing the stories of Ursula Burns, Professor Sue Black and Dame Stephanie Shirley directly with school children as part of our Amazon Future Engineer programme we hope to inspire more young people in these exciting, rewarding careers, emboldening the next generation of future engineers.”

Paul Gurney, CEO and co-founder of BecomingX, said:

“Everyone has potential. Yet for so many young people, having a high-flying career in computer science or engineering is not even a consideration. It’s seen as impossible. They are seen as industries for people who look and talk differently. For those from the best schools. For men. We’re proud to collaborate with the Royal Academy of Engineering and Amazon to tell the stories of three women who have challenged those stereotypes and made a profound difference in the world. Three women that demonstrate that anyone can flourish in engineering, even in the face of adversity. These ‘Engineering Heroes’ show us that with enough determination and the right support that we all can all succeed, in whatever we choose to do. It’s a message we’re proud to share with the next generation of engineers.

For more information please contact

Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering

T: 020 7766 0636

E:  Jane Sutton

Notes for editors

1. Accompanying images can be found here. For background information – Professor Sue Black’s film can be viewed here, Dame Stephanie Shirley’s film can be viewed here and Ursula Burns’ film can be viewed here. 
2. All the films can be viewed publicly at www.thisisengineering.org.uk/heroes. 
3. Biographies for:

Ursula Burns became the first African American woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Growing up in poverty and a single-parent household in Manhattan’s lower east side, Ursula Burns knew the value of hard work.  After joining Xerox as an engineering intern in 1980, the mechanical engineering graduate worked her way up to becoming CEO in 2009, in the process attracting personal congratulations from ex US Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush as well as political activists Reverend Jesse Jackson and Magic Johnson. That same year, President Barack Obama asked her to lead the White House National STEM programme, to improve student participation and performance. Ursula is a founding member of Change the Equation, a not-for-profit programme aiming to boost STEM education for young people and remains an active campaigner for diversity in boardrooms today.

Sue Black is a professor of computer science and technology, an Amazon bestselling author (for her book ‘Saving Bletchley Park’), an award-winning computer scientist and a technology evangelist. 

Dropping out of school at aged 16 due to family challenges, fleeing a violent marital homelife and becoming a single mother of three, Sue Black defied the odds to rise to the highest ranks in academia, subsequently founding multiple industry-leading initiatives to help women get into technology roles.  An advocate of women in computing, Sue set up the UK’s first online network for women in tech – BCSWomen – and led the campaign to save Bletchley Park, in the process raising £4.1 million for the historical home of World War Two’s UK codebreakers, where 75% of the 10,000 staff had been women.  Awarded an OBE in 2016 for her services to technology, Sue is now a Professor of Computer Science at Durham University, where the number of female engineering students has doubled.

Dame Stephanie Shirley is a pioneering technology entrepreneur, philanthropist and icon for gender equality.  Arriving in the UK as a child refugee, escaping pre-World War Two Germany on the Kindertransport, Stephanie felt compelled to justify her survival.  Determined to lead a ‘life worth saving’, the once mathematical clerk and systems engineer overcame anti-Semitism and sexism to found an IT company on her living room table in 1962, with just £6 in capital.  Under her assumed name of ‘Steve’, she subsequently turned ‘Freelance Programmers’ (later known as F International then Xansa) into a multi-billion-pound company, while changing the perception of women in tech.  Steve received a Damehood in 2000 and a Companion of Honour in 2017, an award held by only 65 living people.  Having given away most of her wealth to the autism charities she set up to support her late son Giles, the philanthropic engineer continues to live her life’s purpose by sharing her expertise to transform the lives of others.

5. About This is Engineering
   This is Engineering is a campaign to raise awareness of the breadth of careers in engineering and help address the significant engineering skills and diversity shortfall that is holding back growth and productivity across the UK economy. The campaign aims to give more young people, from the broadest possible backgrounds, the opportunity to take up an exciting, engaging, rewarding and in demand career. This is Engineering is led by the Royal Academy of Engineering, in collaboration with EngineeringUK. The campaign has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and our corporate partners, including Amazon. More information about the campaign is available at www.thisisengineering.org.uk and @ThisIsEng on Twitter.
6. About Amazon: Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion or invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalised recommendations, Prime, Fulfilment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit aboutamazon.co.uk and follow @AmazonNewsUK.
7. About Amazon in the Community: Amazon has long been committed to communities where our employees live and work and we focus on building long-term, innovative, and high impact programmes that leverage Amazon’s unique assets and culture. We want all children and young adults to have the resources and skills to build their best future. We concentrate on “right now needs” – via programmes that address hunger, homelessness, and disaster relief efforts.
8. About Amazon Future Engineer: As part of Amazon in the Community, Amazon Future Engineer is a comprehensive childhood-to-career programme aiming to inspire, educate and enable children and young adults from lower-income backgrounds to try computer science, and pursue careers in this field.
9. About BecomingX: BecomingX is a learning and development organisation that aims to create a world where everyone can realise their potential. BecomingX works with the world’s most inspiring and iconic people to understand the personal attributes that underpin high performance and to help demystify what it really takes to succeed. Combining in-depth understanding of high performance and expertise in personal development, BecomingX helps education providers and companies to build the skills, knowledge, attitudes and relationships needed to succeed. BecomingX is a ‘B Corporation’, certified to meet the highest standards of social and environmental impact and is the highest scoring education company in the UK. Visit www.becomingx.com
10. 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. 
11. International Women in Engineering Day began in the UK in 2014 as a national campaign from the Women’s Engineering Society.  Since then, INWED has grown enormously, receiving UNESCO patronage in 2016 and going truly global the following year.  INWED 2020 was the biggest yet with hundreds of events, reach of over 103 million people, 295,000 online conversations, the top trending hashtag on Twitter that day.  This year, the official theme #engineeringheroes will see an even bigger impact on the world.  Official celebration is now open for registration and hundreds of women have already signed up to join in with this fantastic, action packed event already. 

Congratulations to the following Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering who were among those recognised in The Queen’s Birthday Honours: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-queens-birthday-honours-list-2021

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Professor Helen Valerie ATKINSON CBE FREng Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing, Cranfield University. For services to Engineering and Education

Knight Bachelor

Professor Andrew HOPPER CBE FRS FREng Treasurer and Vice-President, the Royal Society. For services to Computer Technology

Michael James RYAN CBE FREng Vice President and General Manager Belfast, Spirit AeroSystems. For services to the Economy in Northern Ireland

Officer of the Order of the British Empire OBE

Dr Shaun David FITZGERALD FREng Director, Centre for Climate Repair, University of Cambridge. For services to the Covid-19 Response

Member of the Order of the British Empire MBE

Paul BOYLE FREng (Billy Boyle) Chief Executive Officer, Owlstone Medical. For services to Engineering

We also welcome honours given to the following awardees and supporters of Academy activities:

Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Judge Professor Jameel Sadik AL-KHALILI OBE FRS Professor of Physics and Professor of Public Engagement in Science, University of Surrey. For services to Science and Public Engagement in STEM

Pandemic Service Award winner Professor Rebecca Julia SHIPLEY OBE Professor, Healthcare Engineering, University College London. For services to the Development of the Continuous Positive Airways Pressure Device during the Pandemic Nationally and Internationally

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.

For more information please contact:

Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of Engineering

T: +44 207 766 0636

E:  Jane Sutton

The Royal Academy of Engineering, founded by HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, 45 years ago this week at Buckingham Palace, has presented its highest individual award – the Prince Philip Medal – to Dr Gladys West, whose mathematical modelling paved the way for the engineering innovation of GPS. Dr West is the first woman to win the Prince Philip Medal in the 30 years since it was presented for the first time in 1991 to Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, wartime pioneer and inventor of the jet engine.

As a pioneer in the use of complex mathematics and efficient programming to process early satellite data to generate accurate, repeatable and global models of the Earth’s geoid, her work underpinned the mapping functions of GPS and the study of global mean sea level.

Speaking from her home at Gatcombe Park, HRH The Princess Royal, Royal Fellow of the Academy, presented the gold medal via a virtual audience with Dr West at her home in the United States. Dr West was accompanied by her husband Ira, also a mathematician and a former branch head at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, where they both worked for many years.

Accepting the award, Dr West says:

“It is hard for me to believe that I was a little black girl on the farm who had a dream to get off the farm, get educated, and make enough money to take care of myself. And now, I have realized my dreams and reached a height beyond what I anticipated. I encourage young women to believe in yourself, find your passion, work hard and apply yourself, stay committed, find a mentor, participate in activities that relate to your passion, never give up, always keep setting new goals and continue to strive to reach them, and most of all – follow your dreams.”

Now aged 90, Dr West was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, and started her career as a maths and science teacher after graduating from Virginia State University in 1952. Four years later she was hired to work at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, (now called the Naval Surface Warfare Center), where she was the second black woman ever hired and one of only four black employees. West was a programmer in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division for large-scale computers and a project manager for data-processing systems used in the analysis of satellite data.

In the early 1960s, she participated in an award-winning astronomical study that proved the regularity of Pluto’s motion relative to Neptune. Subsequently, Dr West began to analyse data from satellites, putting together altimeter models of the Earth’s shape. She became project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project, one of the first satellites that could remotely sense oceans. Dr West introduced innovations, cutting her team’s processing time in half, and was recommended for a commendation in 1979.

From the mid-1970s through to the 1980s, Dr West designed, developed, tested and then used computer programmes to deliver increasingly precise calculations to model the shape of the Earth – an ellipsoid with irregularities, known as the geoid. Generating an extremely accurate model required her to employ complex algorithms to account for variations in gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth’s shape. Her data ultimately became an important enabler for the Global Positioning System (GPS).

In 1986, Dr West published Data Processing System Specifications for the Geosat Satellite Radar Altimeter, a 51-page technical report from The Naval Surface Weapons Center. The guide was published to explain how to increase the accuracy of the estimation of geoid heights and vertical deflection, important components of satellite geodesy. This was achieved by processing the data created from the radio altimeter on the Geosat satellite, which went into orbit on March 12, 1984.

Dr West worked at Dahlgren for 42 years, retiring in 1998. After retiring, she completed a PhD in Public Administration.

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi CBE FREng, Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Committee, says:

“We are delighted to present Dr Gladys West with the Prince Philip Medal, our most prestigious individual award. Her work on precise modelling of the earth’s surface was relied on by the engineers who realised GPS and the accuracy that is possible today harks back to the definition of the Earth’s geoid, work that Dr West achieved using sparse data from early satellites, working with early computers that required elegant, efficient mathematics and extraordinary diligence.”

Nominating Dr West for the award, Pat Norris, who worked as a satellite geodesist on the Apollo programme in the 1960s and became Chairman of UKspace in the 1990s, says:

“Dr West’s contribution was a combination of complex algebra and software engineering. The discipline of software engineering was embryonic in the 1970s when she was doing her seminal work on geoids and the definition and testing of complex mathematical software was particularly problematic. Her contributions were all the more meritorious as a Black woman in a white patriarchal society. These factors were especially strong in Virginia, where Dr West lived, as captured in the film Hidden Figures. Dr West’s determination and success in overcoming these challenges in her early education set the path for her excelling at work and in family life – a true inspiration for all young people, particularly those with obstacles to overcome.”

Notes for editors

1. The presentation of the Prince Philip Medal to Dr West was filmed by ITV News and clips are available from Jessica Harriott-Kerr Jessica.Harriott-Kerr@itn.co.uk
2. Prince Philip Medal. In 1989, HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Senior Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering, agreed to the commissioning of a gold medal to be ‘awarded periodically to an engineer of any nationality who has made an exceptional contribution to engineering as a whole through practice, management or education’, to be known as the Prince Philip Medal.

   Inaugurated in 1991, the Prince Philip Medal was first presented to the wartime pioneer and inventor of the jet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle OM KBE CB FREng FRS.

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@raeng.org.uk

A report published today calls on government to invest £40 million in improving access to careers provision for students in schools and colleges in England to enable more young people to understand the opportunities available in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers and so support the drive to build back better and ’level up’ across the UK in a post-Covid world. 

Securing the future, a joint report by EngineeringUK and seven engineering and careers organisations, including the Royal Academy of Engineering, argues that while STEM careers provision is essential to inform and inspire young people irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background or other characteristics about careers in STEM, Covid-19 has made delivering that careers provision in schools and colleges more difficult. Just over three quarters (76%) of the careers leaders and STEM teachers surveyed for the report say that it has become more difficult to engage with employers since the start of the pandemic, with many saying that careers activities have been put on hold because of time pressures. The report also found that the digital divide affects access to STEM careers activities in schools and colleges in England, particularly in poorer areas. 68% of schools with above average Free School Meal eligibility (FSM) said a lack of access to technology and internet was a barrier, compared to 36% of schools with below average FSM.

The report recommends providing schools with more funding, estimated at around £40 million annually, to improve their careers provision. It suggests the new funding be used to better resource secondary schools and colleges in England to support all young people with their careers choices, with additional funds for STEM careers provision, focused on increasing diversity in the sector. Funding is also recommended for a dedicated STEM leader in each careers hub, whose role it would be to build schools’ STEM careers capacity by supporting and facilitating joint careers activities with employers, including work experience.

The findings also identified issues related to equality and diversity more generally that were barriers to reaching young people. These include:

• Lack of role models – 46% of survey respondents said this was a barrier to accessing careers provision for girls, with 38% saying the same about pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds and 33% about pupils from lower socio-economic backgrounds
• Limited understanding of what STEM careers could entail
• Lack of confidence
• Lack of awareness of available STEM careers provision

Dr Hilary Leevers, Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, said:  “The youth unemployment figures show young people have been hit hardest by the pandemic, which has exacerbated existing issues, such as the digital divide, further reducing opportunities for young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. At the same time, we know that the STEM sector will offer hundreds of thousands of valuable opportunities for good quality, secure employment. With the government focus on developing the UK as a leader in science and net-zero and the policy of ‘building back better’, together with the levelling up agenda, careers in STEM and engineering will be a reliable choice.

“Careers engagement motivates young people to achieve and enables them to know where future opportunities will be. Young people are anxious about their future and ‘Securing the Future’ shows that good careers provision is more important than ever. We’re urging the government to do everything possible to ensure that all young people know about the careers opportunities available in the STEM sector now and into the future.

“This matters for the sector, which needs to scale up its efforts to recruit people from non-traditional backgrounds, and to improve the life chances of young people themselves.”

Notes to Editors

The series of recommendations are based on a research survey conducted with 200 careers leaders and STEM teachers in secondary schools. The report is co-authored with:

Youth Employment Statistics https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05871/

EngineeringUK is a not-for-organisation that works in partnership with the engineering community to inspire tomorrow’s engineers. We lead the engagement programmes: The Big Bang, Robotics Challenge and Energy Quest and help schools bring STEM to life through real-world engineering via Neon. We bring engineering careers inspiration and resources together through Tomorrow’s Engineers and manage The Code, which drives change at scale to increase the number and diversity of young people choosing academic and vocational pathways into engineering. We base everything we do on evidence and share our insight widely. www.engineeringuk.com    

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