- Winners of the WA Innovators of the Year Awards announced
- Cook Government posts record breaking $240,000 prize pool
- Launch of inaugural WA Government Innovators of the Year category
A revolutionary plastic alternative made from seaweed through to a groundbreaking bioengineered human heart valve are included in this year’s winners of the Western Australia Innovators of the Year Awards (WAIOTY).
Innovation and the Digital Economy Minister Stephen Dawson said the winners included a wide variety of innovative products, systems and technology solutions that were simply world-class.
This year saw 26 finalists compete across the six categories with a $240,000 prize pool being divided between the category winners along with two runners up and three platinum award categories.
The finalists also took part in the WAIOTY Accelerator Program, which provided training and development workshops to guide them on how to grow their innovation businesses and take them to the next level.
This year’s award ceremony also saw the introduction of the Western Australian Government Innovators of the Year category highlighting a focus on innovation within the public sector and the important role it plays in improving public service delivery.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) was the inaugural winner of this award with its State-wide connected radio system linking together every marine rescue group to enable enhanced monitoring of distress calls.
DFES will now receive a place in the Australian Innovation Management Institute’s (AIMI) Certified Innovation Catalyst Program.
At the awards ceremony a new category was announced for inclusion next year with the introduction of the Western Australian Young Innovators of the Year.
There have been a number of contributors to this year’s awards including WAIOTY primary sponsor Rio Tinto along with Wesfarmers, Woodside Energy, Business News, Griffith Hack, Wrays, CERI (Centre for Entrepreneurial Research and Innovation), Biodesign Australia, Nexia Australia, BetterLabs, CSIRO, Moore Australia and AIMI (Australian Innovation Management Institute).
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As stated by Innovation and the Digital Economy Minister Stephen Dawson:
“This is a very exciting time for innovation in WA with our local innovators producing world-class products and solutions that are simply outstanding.
“The Cook Government has a vision on making Western Australia a global hub for innovation, invention, investment and impact and the calibre of these winners is testimony that we’re well on the way.
“Innovation is all about evolution, and it was my pleasure to announce another expansion to the WA Innovators of the Year Awards with a new category to begin next year focused on our younger innovators.
“Congratulations to all of the award winners on their achievement and to all those who participated in this program – an important event that plays a key role in collaboration and inspiration for others to help build WA’s innovation ecosystem.”
Full list of Innovators of the Year Awards winners
RioTinto Emerging Innovation Winner | Uluu | Uluu has created an alternative to plastic made from farmed seaweed using a novel saltwater fermentation process. Uluu is strong, lightweight and waterproof, while being truly biodegradable and biocompatible. |
RioTinto Emerging Innovation Runner-Up | SeaStock | SeaStock has developed an extraction process to produce the highest concentration natural bromoform and a red pigment called R-Phycoerythrin. The dual extraction method supports SeaStock’s strategy of becoming the lowest cost producer of a form of seaweed called Asparagopsis. |
Rio Tinto Growth Innovation Winner | Deimos Laboratory | Deimos is an R&D company that leverages computer vision, machine learning and robotics to solve real world problems. Our Visual Analysis Device performs an automated visual assessment of grain, replacing traditional manual methods. |
Rio Tinto Growth Innovation Runner-Up | Tape Ark | Prior to the cloud, the world’s historical collections of data and video were stored on tapes. Tape Ark has developed a mass tape ingest platform that moves multi-petabyte scale data volumes into the cloud so that these data sets can be both preserved and used as the corpus of some of projects. |
Business News Great for the State Platinum Award | Uluu | Uluu has created an alternative to plastic made from farmed seaweed using a novel saltwater fermentation process. Uluu is strong, lightweight and waterproof, while being truly biodegradable and biocompatible. |
Wesfarmers Wellbeing Platinum Award | CoraMetix | CoraMetix has developed bioengineered heart valves using a precise 3D-printing technique, offering distinct advantages and value proposition over existing products. Its design takes inspiration from the natural structural components found in human valves. |
Woodside Energy Platinum Award for Energy Innovation | Nepternal Hydrogen | Nepternal Hydrogen has developed a breakthrough system that produces 99.999% ultra-pure hydrogen directly from seawater in Western Australia, with an impressive 76% efficiency and an energy consumption of just 43.6 kWh per kilogram of hydrogen. |
WA Government Innovators of the Year Award | Department of Fire and Emergency Services – Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Directorate | DFES have built a State-wide connected Radio over Internet Protocol (RoIP) system allowing them to link every Marine Rescue Group in the State together enabling remote monitoring for radio messages including listening for distress calls State-wide, greatly enhancing their capability to respond. |
