Bluetooth pill dispensers, autonomous ship navigation, stylish safety glasses, and MDMA and Psilocybin-assisted therapy have been recognised at this year's Innovator of the Year awards night.
Bluetooth pill dispensers, autonomous ship navigation, stylish safety glasses, and MDMA/Psilocybin-assisted therapy have been recognised at this year's Innovator of the Year awards night.
The 19th annual awards night, held at Crown on November 3, recognised some of WA's brightest minds with nine winners and two runners-up sharing in more than $280,000.
A record number of submissions were received this year, with finalists taking part in an accelerator program, gaining access to mentoring, workshops, and hands-on training covering intellectual property, wellness, pitching and media.
The evening kicked off with the inaugural YEA WA Young Innovators the Year Award, celebrating the innovation of high school-aged children.
Medi Manage, an automated pill dispenser created by Willetton Senior High School student Raina Gupta.
Ms Gupta's unique innovation is an automated smart pill dispenser connected to an iOS mobile app via Bluetooth. It organises multiple medications and releases the correct dose at the right time, helping users manage complex medication routines.
Other finalists in the category included IDEAcademy's Harrison Hawker (Project Lighthouse) and Perth Modern's Diya Sanjay and Sara Rajwani's Elevare Education.
Project Lighthouse aims to reduce waste from lightbulbs by using a single high-efficiency LED light source which distributes light through an entire building via fibre optic tubes.
Elevare Education empowers migrant students to adjust to academic and emotional hurdles by providing personalised mentorship, structured study sessions and informal guidance to students.
Taking the top prize in the Growth Innovation category was maritime autonomy software developer Greenroom Robotics.
The company's GAMA software upgrades existing and new vessels to operate remotely or autonomously.
Operating in a team with crewed vessels, the software raises vigilance, shrinks human error and cuts fuel and emissions through precise control and smart routing.
The award win builds on an incredibly successful year for Greenroom, which in August was named among the first in Australia to receive a critical AUKUS authorised user approval.
Founded by former Royal Australian Navy (RAN) engineers and multi-generation mariners Harry Hubbert, Zac Pullen and James Keane, the company is already involved in projects with firms such as Austal, the RAN, EGS Survey and UK-based SubSea Craft.
Science and Innovation minister Stephen Dawson said the plethora of entrants showed WA's might in the innovation space.
"West Australians are leading the way in developing new ideas and technologies that solves real problems and create opportunities for our state," he said.
"The WA Innovators of the Year program not only celebrates these achievements but gives local startups and entrepreneurs the support they need to grow, connect and commercialise their ideas.
"With record participation this year and the introduction of the Young Innovators category, it's clear that WA's innovation pipeline is strong and the future is full of promise."
ProGenis Pharmaceuticals won the Emerging Innovation category for the use of its proprietary 'thiomorpholino' RNA drug platform to create PGP-011, a breakthrough RNA treatment for insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes.
PGP-011 targets the gene which causes insulin resistance to facilitate glucose uptake by the body's cells, and is intended to provide an alternative to insulin therapy.
The company was co-founded by professor Marvin Caruthers and Professor Rakesh Veedu, and spawned from research at Murdoch University, the Perron Institute and the University of Colorado Boulder.
SafeStyle won the Business News Great for the State award for its work developing stylish safety glasses for use in a range of industries.
Led by former plumber Tim Lewis, it's been a strong year for SafeStyle, even purchasing its new headquarters in Leederville from property veteran Dale Alcock for $3.4 million earlier this year.
The company has sold over 500,000 pairs and are stocked in over 500 retail stores.
See the full list of winners below.
The Wellbeing Award category winner was ASX-listed Emyria Limited for its work in medication-assisted therapy for post traumatic stress disorder, including the use of MDMA and Psilocybin, at its Empax Centre.
The centre combines medication, intensive psychotherapeutic support, advanced in-room monitoring and AI-generated music to provide trauma-informed treatment.
The Energy Innovation Award category winner was Clear Carbon, a climate-tech innovator which has created a cloud-native platform to track carbon emissions and with finance-grade accuracy.
Unmanned aircraft developer Xplorate and the WA Treasury Corporation were named joint winners of the CERI Program, while Chem Centre and PathWest were joint winners of the WA Government Innovators of the Year category.
