Australia’s Visionary Innovators Honoured
20 May 2010 at 10:12 am
The winners of the prestigious 2010 ATSE Clunies Ross Awards announced in Melbourne are leading Australian innovators in diverse fields such as nuclear science, WLAN technology, mining technology, implant technology and microelectronics and health.
The annual Awards for the ATSE (Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering) Clunies Ross Foundation were set up to honour the work of renowned scientist Sir Ian Clunies Ross who is best known for his pioneering work in veterinary sciences and as Chairman of the CSIRO.
This year six scientists or scientific teams were recipients of awards that were presented the ATSE Clunies Ross Award dinner in Melbourne last night (Wednesday 19th May) with more than 400 eminent entrepreneurs, decision makers, government officials, researchers, academics and business leaders.
The Chairman of the ATSE Clunies Ross Foundation, Bruce Kean says this year’s ATSE Clunies Ross Award winners have made significant and positive impacts on the lives of many Australians and the economy through the development and commercialisation of health, communication and industrial innovations.
Kean says that like Sir Ian Clunies Ross, their willingness to take risks, their innovation and far-sightedness deserve respect and commendation.
Guest speaker at the presentation was Australian IVF pioneer and founder of the Australian Stem Cell Centre and inaugural VESKI Chair, Dr Alan Trounson.
Trounsoun, who is now President of the Californian Institute for Regenerative Medicine in the US with a $US3 billion budget, urged Australian scientists to ‘get globalised’.
He says the best people work together and the future for Australia will be scientists privileged to come back here to collaborate.
The Awards recognise Australia’s pre-eminent scientists and technologists who have bridged the gap between research and the marketplace and are awarded to people who have persisted with their ideas, often against the odds, to the point that their innovations are making a real difference to the economic, social or environmental benefit of Australia.
They follow in the footsteps of past winners such as Dr Fiona Wood, inventor of spray-on skin; Professor Ian Frazer, inventor of the cervical cancer vaccine; Professor Stuart Wenham, a leader in photovoltaic research, and Dr Barry Marshall, who discovered the bacteria causing stomach ulcers.
The 2010 ATSE Clunies Ross Award winners are:
Dr John Boldeman FTSE, Institute of Nuclear Science, University of Sydney and Researcher/ Designer, ANSTO, Sydney
A special Lifetime Contribution award to Dr John Boldeman for his single-minded scientific brilliance combined with exceptional personal commitment to his goals – particularly in the establishment of two national icon projects: the ANTARES Tandem Accelerator and the Australian Synchrotron.
Professor Tim St Pierre, School of Physics, University of WA
Tim St Pierre is a physicist who has researched the magnetic properties of iron in biology and medicine for 25 years and has developed a non-invasive – and risk and pain-free – method of both measuring and imaging the tissue-damaging iron deposits in the human liver caused by disease such as thalassaemia and hereditary haemochromatosis.
Mr Andrew Jessett, CEO, MineWare Pty Ltd, Brisbane
At 33 years of age, Andrew Jessett’s exceptional achievements have played a key role in positioning Australia as a world leader in the development of mining technology, while delivering substantial productivity, safety and economic benefits to Australia’s open-cut coal mining industry.
The Team Behind the ‘WLAN’ Technology That Changed the World
John O’Sullivan, CSIRO; Graham Daniels, CSIRO; Terence Percival, NICTA; Diethelm Ostry, CSIRO and John Deane (formerly CSIRO) invented, patented and demonstrated the wireless local area network (WLAN) technology that underpins the wireless communication system installed in almost every laptop and wireless device and made available in buildings around the world.
Dr John Parker FTSE, Chief Technology Officer, Implant Technologies, NICTA, Sydney
The hearing implant technologies developed under the direction of Dr Parker and his team at Cochlear Ltd have improved the quality of life of tens of thousands of recipients around the world and generated considerable social and economic benefit to Australia.
Dr David Skellern FTSE, CEO, National ICT Australia and Dr Neil Weste FTSE Director and Founder, NHEW R&D, Sydney
The interwoven careers of David Skellern and Neil Weste in the field of microelectronics came together in 1997 when they co-founded Radiata Communications – Neil as CEO and David as CTO. This decision led to contributions to and the first implementation of a new international data communication protocol and eventually to the company being bought by Cisco Systems.
