MathWorks, committed to supporting Innovation
MathWorks continue to champion the critical work of engineers, scientists and technologists as the Headline Sponsor and the Sponsor of the Intelligent Systems category of the E&T Innovation Awards 2020. Here they explain why this is so important to them.
What does it mean to your company to be a part of this awards programme?
MathWorks is a company that is committed to enabling innovation. Our software tools, MATLAB and Simulink are used by engineers and scientists in many different industries to bring their innovative ideas to reality. A great example of this was the recent winning entry in the PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology (CinC) Challenge. Researchers from Tampere in Finland used MATLAB’s statistics and machine learning capabilities to create a high-performance intelligent system that characterizes normal heartbeats in an ECG. The researchers were not programmers but were able to apply all of their domain knowledge to quickly create an intelligent system with MATLAB. It is inspiring to see hundreds of companies from around the world submitting their entries for the E&T Innovation Awards, many of them using MATLAB in just the same way as the Tampere researchers, to create amazing new products and services.
This is the 15thconsecutive year that MathWorks have been a sponsor, can you pick out some highlights from all of that time?
It has been a privilege to meet shortlisted entrants at the awards ceremony and talk with them about their ideas and see the passion that has brought them to this point. The diversity of entrants over all of those years has been staggering from custom 3D printed shoes to combine harvesters intelligently filling trailers with grain and planning the electrification of railway tunnels. It has also been exciting to invite leaders of UK industry to the awards ceremony to let them see the breadth of innovation from organisations big and small.
Are there any innovations or products that really stand out for you within your category shortlisted entries?
This is the first year that MathWorks has sponsored the intelligent systems category. It is impressive to see how artificial intelligence is becoming a reality in everyday life with many of the entries implementing machine learning and deep learning in practical and effective ways, making a real difference to the product or service they are supplying.
Why has MathWorks taken on headline sponsorship of the awards this year?
The COVID 19 pandemic has caused uncertainty and change all around the world. Innovation is all about responding quickly to change, seeing it as an opportunity. MATLAB has been used by many organisations this year on COVID-19 related research and development and MathWorks engineers have been able to directly support some of these efforts with expertise, models and advice. MathWorks was able to increase its sponsorship of the innovation awards at this time to further support the work of the IET in encouraging and rewarding that innovation, making sure the awards could carry on in a new form this year. It has been great then to see a significant number of the entries focusing on helping people overcome the pandemic in many different ways.
