The Queen presented awards to five engineers selected as winners of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering
The five engineers who have been leading lights in the creation of the Internet and the World Wide Web received their awards from Her Majesty the Queen in front of an audience that included the three leaders of the UK’s main political parties, and members of the Royal Family.
The winners were announced in March, but yesterday received their awards directly from Her Majesty the Queen in at Buckingham Palace.
The award judges were also in attendance as well as a number of young engineers in a celebration of the prize and engineering in general which was designed to inspire.
The trophy received by each winner was designed by 17 year old Jennifer Leggett.
Robert Kahn, Vint Cerf and Louis Pouzin were recognised for their contributions to the protocols that make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee, for inventing the World Wide Web, and Marc Andreessen, who wrote the Mosaic browser.
It was a good day to be an engineer as the Royal Accademy for Engineering also celebrated prominent figures in the field and awarded medals for outstanding commercial success.
It was announced that four engineering entrepreneurs will recienve silver medals from the RAE including Dr Eben Upton who was instrumental in the design of the Raspberry Pi, a bare bones computer which aims to revolutionise computing and electronic engineering skills in the UK. The Raspberry Pi is also a proof of the possibility of re-shoring manufacture to the UK. Although it was originally necessary to make the product in China, manufacturing was last year relocated to the Sony Technology Centre in Wales where improvement to production technologies and efficiencies have made the price point of UK production feasible.
All recipients of the RAE silver medals for outstanding commercial success will be presented at the Academy’s annual dinner in Battersea Power Station on July 17.
Commenting at the Queen Elizabeth Prize ceremony Prime Minister David Cameron said: “This is a fantastic week for innovation, which is absolutely vital to jobs and growth in our economy. Yesterday I met the face of engineering’s future in Downing Street as we launched a drive for 100,000 new engineering apprentices – and today we have the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.”
