Robotics whizz wins the Young Engineer of the Year award
November 2008
An Auckland robotics engineer Toby Collett was announced winner of the 2008 New Zealand Engineering Excellence (NZEE) Awards New Zealand Young Engineer of the Year at TE PAPA in Wellington last night.
The Auckland based engineer Dr Toby Collett co-founded INRO Technologies, New Zealand’s foremost robotics company and winner of the Gen-i 2008 Start Up Company of the Year Awards. His company retrofits cars, forklifts and other vehicles with robotic control systems, effectively replacing the driver.
A senior engineer in the company, Toby leads a development team that has successfully designed, commercialised, and sold an advanced retrofit vehicle automation system – a world first – in under 14 months. As INROs robotic systems architect, Toby not only drives INRO research and development, he also contributes to development of the world's leading robotics development framework.
Convenor for the NZEE Individual Awards judging panel Steve Gentry said “Toby is a young engineer, who has made a most excellent contribution. He has demonstrated leadership and vision to transform his start up business into highly successful international robotic company.”
The award is bestowed to a young engineer, aged 35 years or under, who is judged to have made the most excellent contribution as an engineer and leader through their professional role and community involvement. Toby received a trophy and a cash prize of $2,000.00. The other three finalists each receive $500.00.
As an undergraduate Toby worked in electrical operations for Fisher & Paykel and during the course of his academic study he won several prestigious university Doctorial Scholarship award for. For the last seven years he has founded and started up successful new business ventures in the IT and software fields.
The fourth New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for New Zealand engineering professionals. The awards are presented in two major areas: Individual Awards, that recognise leadership, entrepreneurship, and our young engineers; and Category Awards, that recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Category winners.
The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are hosted by a consortium of five partners and 10 contributing organisations. The partners are: Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE); Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Incorporated (INGENIUM); Electricity Engineers Association of New Zealand (EEA); Association of Consulting Engineers of New Zealand (ACENZ) and the Institution of Professional Engineers of New Zealand (IPENZ.)
For more information contact:
Chief Executive, IPENZ, Engineers New Zealand.
Mobile: 021 311 879
DDI: 04 474 8935
Prepared by Julie Buchanan, Communications Manager, IPENZ, Engineers NZ,
Mobile: 021 479 885, DDI: 04 473 2028