Da Vinci Innovation Awards

Twenty presenters pitched their projects to an audience of more than 100 guests at the 3rd Da Vinci Innovation Awards event in Cardiff last night.

The presenters were given 3 minutes each to make their pitches which included wide ranging topics from ”Improving Airline Safety” to ”Using Engineering to Save Babies”. Many of the presenters were from multidisciplinary research teams working across different Schools in the University and they also included staff, and postgraduate and undergraduate students.

There were five winning pitches which were chosen by the audience via a secret ballot carried out at the end of the presentations. Each winning pitch will receive a grant of up to £3,000 to kick start their project. The winners, who included both staff and students, were:

• Kieron Bally – Audio Coaching with a Smart Inhaler
• Ed Broomfield and Clare Gillam -  The Unmanned Autonomous Rocket
• Mark Eaton -  Materials Greater than the sum of their Parts
• Dave Jamieson – Bacteria Baiting with Better Bubbles
• Valentine Muhawenimana – Going with the Flow: Fish Friendly Engineering

Professor  David Barrow, who is the instigator and organiser of the Da Vinci Awards, said that he was delighted with the response to his call for pitches, and was extremely impressed that all the presenters kept to the three minute time limit.Professor Barrow said: “It was refreshing to see that a high proportion of the winners came from our own postgraduate and undergraduate students.This is becoming a very popular event but at the moment it is largely Engineering, Medicine and the Biological Sciences which are participating and I am hoping that a broader range of Schools within the University will get involved in any future events.”