Award Judges
For the TechWorks Awards 2021 we have invited a selection of independent judges from across the industry. Each of them have been chosen for their expertise and insight to select the deserving winners of each category. Here’s an introduction to each of our judges where you can find out a little more about them as well as which award they are judging.
Holly Marshall
Technology and Strategy
Consultant
Holly Marshall
Technology and Strategy ¦ Consultant
Holly has an BSc (Hons) Computer Science, 20 experience in tech (specifically connected car, cellular mobile, telematics and data-driven insurance, ) and for the last 3 years she has specialised in Smart Cities, the surrounding eco system and the underpinning infrastructure.
She has recently completed deep research on the Chinese CAV market, 5G and UK Skills levels, and how PNT and 5G can be combined to deliver next gen accuracy, resilience and ubiquitous connectivity.
Holly has also more recently started to focus on health tech, frictionless retail, connected stadia, and 5G for Education. Holly skills include Strategy Development, Programme Management, Deep Research, Business Development, Commercial Management, Product Development, Strategy and Visual Mapping. Holly is also an Innovate UK assessor.
Will Drury
Challenge Director
UKRI
Will Drury
Challenge Director, Driving the Electric Revolution ¦ UKRI
I am a very passionate engineer who cares about what I do, the technology I represent, and the way that this can be used to make a difference across all sectors of Power Electronics Machines and Drives enabling the delivery of Net Zero and the Green Economic Recovery. Bringing together the technical, strategic business and commercial skills sets me apart and enables me to drive and deliver growth through organisations.
I have a strong technical background in power electronics and energy conversion that positions me well to create an environment of innovation to deliver business growth. I am a commercially astute engineer with a drive to stimulate change. Underpinning my ethos is the delivery of strategic benefit that comes from development of streamlined strategy, considering organic and inorganic options for progress. I am comfortable generating both near term technology & business wins as well as longer term blue-sky technology concepts for 15-20 years out and integrating these into business planning through fundamental R&D.
I am highly regarded across the power electronics, machines & drives industry providing valuable insight to a wide range of companies. I provide technology and project leadership combined with an acute commercial and innovation driven mindset.
With a background in power electronic design and development, I believe that cross-sector technology and the development and exploitation of cross-cutting innovation is paramount to the future technological revolution.
Dr Alastair McGibbon
Head of Business Development
CSA Catapult
Dr. Alastair McGibbon
Head of Business Development ¦ CSA Catapult
Alastair has over 30 years’ experience in semiconductors and electronics, working in the UK, South East Asia and the US.
He has spent the last 15 years working across the UK supply chain in power electronics, helping to encourage collaboration and increase government awareness of the important of power electronics in systems.
He is a co-initiator of PowerelectronicsUK, co-author of the recent PowerelectronicsUK Green and White Papers and helped contribute to the APC/Automotive council roadmaps in Power Electronics. He is currently responsible for Power Electronics Business Development at the new Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, with the remit of helping the UK power electronics supply chain, with a strong emphasis on automotive, exploit the opportunities of wide bandgap semiconductors in systems applications.
Andy Sellars
Strategic Development Director
CSA Catapult
Andy Sellars
Strategic Development Director ¦ CSA Catapult
Andy joined the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult in February 2017, and was appointed Strategic Development Director in September 2018. Andy developed the Catapult’s business case and strategy, submitting it to HM Treasury in 2015 following a 2-year consultation with industry, government and academia.
Andy joined the Catapult from Innovate UK, where he delivered £15m of strategic investments in electronics, smart materials and compound semiconductors. His early career was spent leading R&D teams with Rolls Royce, Spirent PLC and Abbott Diagnostics, and he was prime consultant on film and TV lighting for James Bond and Sky News. Andy holds an Executive MBA from Glasgow University and a Doctorate from Strathclyde University.
Andy recently represented the Catapult during round table discussions with the Prime Minister, and joined the Secretary of State during the GREAT Festival of Innovation in Hong Kong.
Jim Nicholas
CEO
Uniphy Limited
Jim Nicholas
CEO ¦ Uniphy Limited
Jim Nicholas is the CEO of Uniphy Limited, a company dedicated to Product Designer creative freedom to realise freeform 3D products, with touch sensing on their surface, proximity sensing about the surface, the integration of displays & intuitive HMI controllers such as dials, sliders buttons & switches, whilst doing so with a breakthrough in capital investment.
Jim is also Chairman of Codeplay a world-renowned software company “Enabling AI to be Open, Safe & Accessible to all” and a board member of Silexica a disruptive startup “Mastering software/hardware complexity at the intelligent edge”. He has held a variety of executive positions. He was the CEO of MIPS Technologies, leading the transition out of Imagination Technologies into the standalone entity acquired by Tallwood Venture Capital.
Before that he was promoted to Imagination Technologies’ Executive Vice President & MIPS Business Unit General Manager. Whilst responsible for MIPS, Jim defined & executed the strategy of ensuring that MIPS was considered a leading architecture addressing autonomous driving & AI, developing a strong relationship with Mobileye.
Other appointments have included being GM of STMicroelectronics’ Microcontroller Division {creating the 8-bit STM8 & the world’s most commercially successful & ubiquitous ARM based, 32-bit microcontroller family, the STM32}, VP of Marketing for ARM’s Processor Division, VP & GM of Processors Subsystems & Productivity group for ST-Ericsson [& STMicroelectronics] and VP of Marketing for Toumaz Ltd {Healthcare & Consumer Electronics {Frontier Smart Technologies}. Jim has a track record for successfully transforming distressed businesses & ineffective R&D organizations into productive & profitable entities. He is founder/owner of AutonomyN LLC a Strategic & Operations Services Consultancy & a board member of Silexica.
Georgios Papadakis
Senior Innovation Lead, Digital Security by Design
Innovate UK
Georgios Papadakis
Senior Innovation Lead, Digital Security by Design ¦ Innovate UK
George has worked in the ICT and Defence & Security industries across a diverse spectrum of roles from R&D to project management and business development.
He specialised in telecommunications with a track record on novel concepts and architectures for the design and development of prototype systems for broadband access and networking both in the wireless and wireline segments.
With an industrial experience on multi-stakeholder international collaborations as part of European research and innovation projects, George has served as the UK’s National Contact Point responsible for the Horizon 2020 themes of ICT and Future and Emerging Technologies and as an expert delegate in the respective Programme Committees. In his current role as Innovation Lead at Innovate UK, he is responsible for the strategic and programmatic aspects of the Electronics, Sensors and Photonics (ESP) technology and innovation areas.
The ESP programme activity supports public investments on underpinning technologies and capabilities from components and devices all the way to system-level development enabling innovative solutions across various industrial challenges and application areas.
Paul Brookes
Head of Innovation
Siemens Mobility, ITS
Paul Brookes
Head of Innovation ¦ Siemens Mobility, ITS
Paul is Head of Innovation, Siemens Mobility, ITS (Intelligent Traffic Systems). His experience in embedded systems design and management spans 25 years and 3 industry sectors: computer systems, motion control and intelligent transport systems.
Holder of a DTI award for promoting good practice in microelectronic design, Paul is a Chartered Engineer, Siemens mentor, innovation lead and consultant in the area of City Mobility and ITS.
Paul has a strong interest in leveraging the value chain of co-operative systems vendors to improve traffic control, reduce environmental impact and increase traveller satisfaction.
Matt Boyle OBE
Chair
Diving the Electric Revolution Industrialisation Centres
Matt Boyle
Chair ¦ Driving the Electric Revolution Industrialisation Centres
Until November 30, 2017 Matt Boyle was President and CEO of Sevcon; a Nasdaq listed, Global, North East England Headquartered company which is at the forefront of the global electrification. During Matt’s Presidency Sevcon grew from a $20M industrial business in 1997 to a Company acquired by BorgWarner for $200M in September 2017 which was predominately automotive focused. Matt consults for German, Italian, US, Chinese and UK companies M&A, strategic planning and UK inward investment, all associated with electrification.
Matt was one of the authors of the successful Stephenson Challenge, now Driving the Electric Revolution an Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Wave 3 Challenge. Matt has continued his interest in the seven sector electrification challenge by becoming the Interim Challenge Director. Matt is a member of the IET Industrial skills policy group, is the Independent Board member of the North East Automotive Alliance (NEAA) and Chairs the North East Skills chairs group a group dedicated to dissemination of best practice in Engineering Skills generation. Matt was awarded an OBE for services to Engineering and Skills in the 2018 New Year honours list.
Siddartha Khastgir
Head of Verification & Validation of Connected & Autonomous Vehicles
WMG
Siddartha Khastgir
Head of Verification & Validation of Connected & Autonomous Vehicles ¦ WMG
Siddartha is currently a Head of Verification & Validation of Connected & Autonomous Vehicles at WMG, University of Warwick and has already achieved considerable success in the automotive industry. He has a big focus on safety of CAV, both from a technical perspective and public engagement perspective. He is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow.
A TEDx speaker, a Forbes Under 30 honouree, he has received numerous awards for research contributions which have delivered impact to the automotive industry both nationally and internationally. He represents the UK on the ISO Technical Committee and is a member of an international team of experts, creating international standards for safe introduction of automated vehicles.
After his undergraduate at IIT Kharagpur (India), (including a period as a research interns in UK and Germany), he worked for 4 years in the industry on advanced control technology, first with Tata Motors (India) and then with FEV (Germany) and had led multi-cultural teams in delivering mass production product project teams.
Gunwant Dhadyalla
Research Engineering Lead, Simulation V&V & Sensors
WMG
Gunwant Dhadyalla
Research Engineering Lead, Simulation V&V & Sensors ¦ WMG
Gunwant graduated with honours with a Masters in engineering from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine.
His history with the automotive electronics industry began as a sponsored student with Rover Group where he worked on a number product launches. Gunwant also worked in the Advanced Research Group in Rover Group and subsequently took up a role as a consultant in the Electrical and Electronics Group at Rolls-Royce and Bentley, followed by a similar role for Valeo Group in Germany.
He is currently employed as a Principal Engineer in the Energy and Electrical Systems group at WMG, University of Warwick.
Daniel Dearing
Innovate UK EDGE Senior Innovation Specialist
St John’s Innovation Centre Ltd
Daniel Dearing
Innovate UK EDGE Senior Innovation Specialist ¦ St John’s Innovation Centre Ltd
My professional experience includes a long career in technology development, project and team management, consulting and technology business development. In recent years I have specialised in building communities of technology professionals, facilitating knowledge transfer and helping small companies secure grant funding.
In September 2016 I founded Actualise Consulting Ltd – A technology assessment, commercialisation and consulting company servicing the burgeoning community of innovative small to medium high-tech companies in the UK and Europe.
Prior to that I was with Digital Catapult for nearly 2 years working on the creation of collaborative R&D projects and the applications for UK and EU grant funding. Before that I was Accreditations Program Manager for ARM, managing the creation of a new global, exam-based accreditation program based on ARM technology.is program.
Prior to ARM, I spent 4 years with the Electronics Knowledge Transfer Network, facilitating knowledge transfer around the UK electronics industry between government, industry and academia. In this position I specialised in technology knowledge transfer in the fields of embedded systems, autonomous systems and robotics, fixed and wireless communications, software, and medical/healthcare devices.
Before that I ran my own technology consulting company, Accelerate Consulting Ltd for 4 years. During this time I worked with various early stage and SME technology companies helping them bring technology products to market. .
Specialties: Technology marketing, business development, networking and consulting in the field of embedded systems, fixed and wireless communications. Technical due diligence for investors in early stage and small to medium technology companies.
Bryn Balcombe
Chief Strategy Officer
Roborace
Bryn Balcombe
Chief Strategy Officer ¦ Roborace
Bryn Balcombe is the Chief Strategy Officer for Roborace, a motorsport competition for human and AI drivers, designed to accelerate the research and development of Vehicle Intelligence and human-machine interfaces required for transportation of the future. His previous experience comes from Formula One where he architected and patented vehicle to infrastructure communication systems and developed the F1 Group’s first global media network. He has also consulted on technology strategy for organisations including the BBC and McCann Worldgroup and has a BEng in Mechanical Engineering & Vehicle Design.