TAIPAI (Taiwan News) – Taiwanese research institutions have won seven awards at the 2021 R&D 100 Awards, a prestigious science and technology competition, an official from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said on Tuesday (October 26th).
In the last 14 years, Taiwan has won a total of 66 awards at the annual event, according to Report on CNA.
Speaking at a press conference at the Regent Taipei Hotel, Deputy Economy Minister Lin Chuan-ning (林 全能) said it was proof of the country’s success in technological innovation.
Six of the winning applications this year have been developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), the Information Industry Institute (III), the Metal Industry Research and Development Center (MIRDC) and the Taiwan Textile Research Institute (TTRI), and one was created by The National Laboratory for Applied Research (NARLabs), Lynn said.
Although Taiwan has been known for hardware development in the past, Lynn said this year’s winners also focused on software or firmware – the integration of the two.
Meanwhile, ITRI President Edwin Liu (() said the next step is to transfer profitable technologies to the industry so that local manufacturers can put them on the market.
“We’ve seen a huge impact on industries from national laboratory innovations, and that’s one of the things the R&D 100 awards are designed to celebrate – inventions that change the world for the better.”
“ITRI is clearly a major player in this field and a huge resource for Taiwan’s industrial communities,” said Paul J. Haney, vice president and editor-in-chief of R&D World, was quoted as saying in an ITRI statement on Tuesday.
Among ITRI’s three winning applications is a device called the Ubiquitous Water Rod. This seemingly magical gadget extracts clean water from the air through built-in ultra-highly efficient steam / air separation equipment, according to ITRI.
Another is the biomimetic materials and structures for tissue integration (BioMS-Ti), which will be used in sports and orthopedic implants for the integration of soft and hard tissues. ITRI’s other profitable innovation is a software-defined advanced robotic joint to be implemented as a building block for flexible mechatronic applications.
The other four R&D 100 award winners from Taiwan are MIRDC microparticle heat treatment system equipment, TTRI RFID yarn and cloud-based smart point processing software from NARLabs, which developed the technology with the Taiwan National Yang Ming University Chiao Tung and Tunhai University.
Finally, a software platform with AI technology that III developed to combat misinformation won bronze for corporate social responsibility, a special category awarded by R&D World.
Organizers say the R&D 100 Awards are the most prestigious innovation awards program in nearly six decades. The announcement of the award took place during a virtual celebration on Tuesday.
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