The e-Legacy Awards : hitting heady heights at the Roof Gardens

Fab lunch at a top London venue, with panoramic views; meeting the great and the good of electronics, congratulating the winners of this year’s e-Legacy Awards. It’s a tough life, but someone has to do it.

The e-Legacy Awards venue this year was larger so we could welcome more guests, boasted even loftier views of London than we enjoyed last year. It’s not often you can enjoy Spanish Gardens during lunch and perhaps take a walk outside later to spot a flamingo, or take in the views.

The e-Legacy Awards produced some surprises and lots of gasps of admiration as the winners of this year’s Awards were announced at the Roof Gardens in Kensington, London, last month.

The winners were announced at the lavish Awards luncheon, held last month at the Roof Gardens in London’s Kensington. Among the greenery of the Spanish and Tudor Gardens, guests mingled with a pre-lunch Pimms, with finalists and their representatives mingled with members of the UK and European press. During the three-course meal, I was privileged to announce the Award winners. All finalists were examples of how foresight and investment to develop talent can produce huge dividends. The investment in training and education are obvious examples, but the finalists in other categories, such as the popular Environmental Design, Contribution to Sustainability and Investment in the Environment are also fine examples of how electronics companies are anticipating the future.

The Medical Advances and Contribution to Safety Awards are great examples of the real and positive contribution the electronics design makes to our society.

The readers of Electronic Product Design voted in their thousands to say which company has done the most to ensure an electronics legacy. There were just under 6,000 votes received from the UK, Europe and the United States, showing just how passionate engineers are about the issues addressed by The e-Legacy Award categories.

Everyone who made it to the finalist stages beat a great field of competition, with an exceptionally high quality level of entries, over 80 in all. The judges whittled that down to four in five categories but had to settle for a choice of six in two of the categories, as there really was an impasse stage as the breadth of projects and the quality of the entries meant the finalist shortlist was impossible to reduce further.

The range of companies that entered was diverse with entries from all sectors, national and multi-national companies, addressing niche and broad market sectors. We were equally thrilled to receive a high calibre of nominations not just Europe but from the US as well.

The e-Legacy Awards are the electronics industry’s way of counter-balancing the bad press it receives for using chemicals and creating waste. It is too easy to spread the negative message and on the following pages you will see a very postive side of our industry, the intellect it nutures and the positive contribution it makes to lives not just to day but to tomorrow.

Two of the most popular categories were Contribution to Sustainability and Environmental Design, showing how electronics companies are conscious of the drain on the earth’s resources and are proactive in combating environmental deterioration.

We were pleased to see some well-known, international companies up for awards, competing against smaller, local projects, showing that the idea behind The e-Legacy Awards is universal and applicable to all, regardless of size and resources. Some of the winners may surprise you, sometimes the answer does not need loads of financial backing, just an understanding of the problem and a creative approach to its solution.

Suffice to say, we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you for taking the time to vote and encouraging companies to be responsible. Thank you to our sponsors, who encouraged and supported EPD’s efforts to promote the electronics industry and to improve its image.

Thank you everyone who took the time to enter a nomination and congratulations to all those who made it to the finalists stage and of course, congratulations to this year’s winners.

Together, we have made a better future through electronics.

For all the winners and pictures please click on the relevant link below.