Bright ideas and hard work have paid off for the six winners of the latest Aerospace Australia Innovation Awards, presented at the Avalon Airshow this week.
The winning entries include a company that has revolutionised the making of advanced carbon fibre deposits and a small software house’s world-leading development of an electronic flight planning system.
Another of the top awards has gone to a university researcher who developed ways to reduce in-flight turbulence by imitating the way birds’ wing feathers behave.
The awards, presented by Aerospace Australia, organiser of the Avalon trade show, include SME Innovation Grants and young innovator Scholarships worth $10,000 each.
“Highly prestigious awards already exist for excellence in engineering, industrial design and business. But ours are the first to recognise the efforts and achievements of innovative Australian companies and individuals in the aerospace industry,” Avalon 2015 CEO Ian Honnery said on Tuesday.
“Our purpose as a foundation is to promote the development of Australia’s industry capacity in aerospace, defence, maritime and IT, so we’re putting our money – literally – where our mouths are.”
The winners:
Defence Industry National Innovation award: Quickstep Aerospace, Sydney.
Civil Industry National Innovation Award: AvSoft Australia, Melbourne
Defence Industry SME Innovation Grant: Defence Materials Technology Centre, Melbourne.
Civil Industry SME Innovation Grant: BowerAero, Melbourne.
Young Innovator Scholarship Defence Industry: Vanessa Lussini, Queensland University.
Young Innovator Scholarship Civil Industry: Abdulghani Mohamed, RMIT, Melbourne.
