Innovation in your car — or while walking the dog

For almost six decades, the R&D 100 Awards have celebrated innovation across multiple industries, promoting new technologies that we feel are changing the world in a positive way. I’ve been involved in running the program for two years now — meaning everything from answering questions on the submission process to finding qualified judges to putting together the PowerPoint for the awards celebration. Honestly, it’s a huge volume of work, but it’s a labor of love for me, and I’m honored to be responsible for this venerable program.

In talking with the scientists and engineers who have been honored with R&D 100 Awards, as well as reading so many of the applications, it struck me how many of these innovations had interesting genesis stories. Additionally, many of them tackled innovation by using multidisciplinary teams, comprised of people who had vastly different areas of expertise and often did not speak the same tech language at the start.

To help delve into these sorts of stories and ask more about how innovation truly happens in today’s world, we decided to start R&D 100 – The Podcast. I’m joined each episode by the dynamic and engaging Aimee Kalnoskas, our Senior Editor who also is my on-stage presentation partner for the in-person R&D 100 Awards Banquet. In each episode, which generally range from 30-40 minutes, we examine one past R&D 100 winner, interview some of the principal investigators, and see what we can learn about the innovation process.

As of this writing, we’re just wrapping up our fifth episode of the podcast, and we’re very pleased with the support and kind feedback we’ve received from the R&D community. I’d love to add you as one of our listeners, so we’ve tried to make it easy for you to fi nd. You can visit the R&D World homepage, at rdworldonline.com, and fi nd all the episodes under the Resources menu-bar item at the top, under Podcasts. Or visit Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts or wherever you normally find your podcasts and search for “R&D 100.”

If you’re a past R&D 100 winner and you think that your innovation story is an interesting one, I’d love to hear more, so we can consider it for a future podcast episode. Feel free to reach out at the email address below. And please share the word with your colleagues about the podcast series.

Lastly, speaking of the R&D 100 Awards, the 2021 nomination process is in full swing, with a deadline for nominations of May 7. Full details are on the website, or you can always follow @RD100Awards on Twitter for the latest updates.

Paul J. Heney | VP, Editorial Director
[email protected]
On Twitter @wtwh_paulheney