I always like to write about technology that wasn't designed to serve a market (meaning, consumers who will pay) per se, but which was designed with a humanitarian need in mind.
Students from the B.V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology in India won an award for developing electronic aids for handicapped children.
(Credit: IEEE)On Thursday in Los Angeles the IEEE (formerly the acronym for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is holding its first IEEE Presidents' Change the World Competition award ceremony.
The world's largest technical professional society is granting prize money to students from around the world who develop "unique solutions to real-world problems using engineering, science, computing and leadership skills to benefit their community and/or humanity as a whole."
The IEEE Student Humanitarian Supreme Prize of $10,000 will be awarded to two Stanford students for developing what they called the NanoLab, "a hand-held diagnostic laboratory capable of quantitative multiplex protein detection in a very simple to use, wash-free assay," which would be particularly useful in developing countries.
A team of 19 students from B.V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology in India are receiving a $5,000 prize for developing electronic games, devices, and toys designed to stimulate physically and mentally handicapped children and encourage exercises.
A bicycle-powered grain crusher, targeting developing countries without easy access to electricity for motors, won five students from Rowan University in New Jersey a $2,500 prize.
Smaller prizes were awarded for other projects, including one involving robots in agriculture, several related to distributing electricity in rural and small communities, and electronic health care for the under-privileged.
Every fall the Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif., grants awards for technology innovation that benefits humanity.
Corrected at 8:50 a.m. PDT: The award ceremony is Thursday.
Matthew T. Mason, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, has won an award for his "pioneering contributions to the fundamental understanding of the mechanics of robotic manipulation and to graduate education in robotics."
The Robotics and Automation Society, which bestowed Mason with its annual Pioneer Award, is part of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE). So while the monetary prize for the lifetime achievement award is only $2,000, a lot of prestige comes with the plaque he was given over the weekend.
Matthew T. Mason heads the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
(Credit: Carnegie Mellon)Mason's body of work includes robotic juggling, legless robotic travel, robotic locomotion, handless robotic manipulation of objects (robot soccer), and robotic origami. Mason's famous robotic origami project, in which robots build origami cranes from paper, was lauded for the progress it made in developing robotic agility with soft objects.
Mason also wrote the book "Mechanics of Robotic Manipulation."
But the general public will likely remember Mason for something else entirely. With the help of Mason--and under Jim Morris, who was computer science school dean at the time--Carnegie Mellon opened the Robot Hall of Fame in 2003.
The hall of fame honors both real and fictional robots as a way to engage public interest in robotics and engineering. While the Robot Hall of Fame technically rewards the robots themselves and not their creators, Mason would be a likely candidate if the rules change.
Mason, who is a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and the IEEE, earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctorate in computer science and artificial intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He has been a Carnegie Mellon faculty member since 1982.
For more insights on his work and thoughts on robotics, read CNET's Q&A with Mason.
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