Innovator of the Year Awards: Manufacturing and Engineering
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2023
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode will be focusing on the manufacturing and engineering category. Some of the nominees have found novel uses for old materials, often finding a much more sustainable way of producing things. A couple of them use cutting edge engineering – including graphene, a miracle material rediscovered right here in the UK, by the University of Manchester. Britain is, of course, the home of the industrial revolution. These modern homegrown champions are keeping that legacy alive.
Martin Vander Weyer, The Spectator's business editor, judges the awards and hosts this podcast along with three other judges: Gabriel Fysh, entrepreneur and Director at Transcend Packaging, a former winner of the awards; Ian Ritchie CBE, an engineer and entrepreneur, who sits on the board of a number of companies in Scotland and in the IT and engineering sphere; and Michelle White, co-head of Investec's private office.
The finalists in this category are:
- The Cheeky Panda, which makes tissue and hygiene products from bamboo.
- THIS™, which makes meaty-tasting plant-based foods, from sausages to chicken.
- QLM Technology Ltd, which has invented a quantum gas lidar technology to detect greenhouse gases.
- MacRebur Limited, which uses waste plastic to replace bitumen in road surfacing.
- Partful, which helps manufacturers with an end-to-end repair process by locating components and parts.
- Graphene Innovations Manchester, which aims to replace highly-emitting cement with graphene in construction.
- Equipmake, which produces ultra-high-performance electric motors, power systems and vehicle drivetrains.
- Paragraf, which mass produces graphene-based electronic devices using standard semiconductor processes.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome to this podcast in a series of podcasts for this year's Spectator Economic Innovator of the Year Awards, sponsored by Investing. |
| 0:16.3 | Every year since 2018, we've been travelling the country north and south, east and west, in search of |
| 0:22.5 | the boldest new ventures that are disrupting and innovating in their respective industries. |
| 0:30.4 | We're making a series of five podcasts this year to tell you about the finalists. There are some |
| 0:36.1 | 44 of them selected out of 250 entries |
| 0:40.0 | and they're among Britain's most interesting and exciting homegrown entrepreneur-led |
| 0:46.2 | high-growth businesses. I'm Martin van der Weir. I'm the business editor of the Spectator |
| 0:51.7 | and I'm one of the founders of these awards. |
| 0:55.2 | This episode is focused on manufacturing and engineering. |
| 1:00.7 | The nominees here are found novel uses for old materials, for example, |
| 1:06.7 | often finding more sustainable ways of producing familiar things. |
| 1:11.7 | Some use cutting-edge engineering, including graphene, |
| 1:16.0 | the extremely thin, extremely strong new material |
| 1:20.1 | discovered in the UK at the University of Manchester, |
| 1:24.9 | where indeed so much of the original design and perfection of the |
| 1:29.8 | first computers also took place. So very much part of the tradition of British innovation. |
| 1:36.5 | We were indeed home to the Industrial Revolution and it's great to see that our manufacturing |
| 1:42.3 | and engineering today is keeping that forward momentum alive. |
| 1:47.5 | I've got three judges with me for this episode, and I'll ask them to introduce themselves briefly, |
| 1:53.0 | starting with a word from Michelle White, representing our sponsor Investec. |
| 1:58.6 | Thanks, Martin. Yes, InvestTech are the proud sponsors of the awards for the |
| 2:03.7 | second year in a row now. As a firm founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, we're a specialist |
... |
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