As the deadline for the 2017 Hawley Award looms near, on Tuesday 18 April 2017, past winner Solveiga Pakštaitė, tells of how the Award helped her. The 2016 winner took home the £5,000 prize for her project Bump Mark, a bio-reactive food expiry labelling innovation.

Solveiga says: “Winning the Hawley Award has been so valuable to the Bump Mark team - it brings gravity to our venture to reduce food waste and was able to fund the international stage of our patent application. I think it's so important that engineering bodies reward people using this skill to do good, so I look forward to seeing many more engineers being recognised by the Hawley Award. I would encourage anybody with a great idea up their sleeve to apply for the award due to the opportunities it brings, not to mention the chance to experience The Worshipful Company of Engineer's Annual Awards Dinner!”

Bump Mark is a bio-reactive solution calibrated to experience decay at the same rate as the food it is labelling to provide accurate, real-time indications of the product’s freshness. The project’s aim is to enable radical reductions in premature disposal of food by providing a more accurate indication of its “safe-to-use-by” date.

The annual Hawley Award is presented for the most outstanding engineering innovation that delivers demonstrable benefit to the environment. Entries must be based on work undertaken after graduate or post-graduate degree work and must have at least reached a stage where a prototype or a proof of concept has been developed, with the expectation of commercial implementation. Candidates must be members of a professional engineering institution and within ten years of starting a professional career as an engineer or scientist in either academia or industry.

Full details about award criteria and how to enter can be found by clicking on Hawley Award. Interviews for shortlisted candidates will be held on 4 May 2017.

The award is presented by the Worshipful Company of Engineers through their trust fund, ‘The Engineers Trust’ (www.engineerstrust.org.uk). The 2017 Hawley Award winner will be presented with their prize at the Worshipful Company of Engineers / Engineers Trust Annual Awards Ceremony and Dinner on 18 July 2017.