Celebrating our best ideas and change
The LeicestershireLive Innovation Awards launched in 2018 with the aim of recognising new ideas and successful changes made in organisations of all sizes and across all sectors.
It now takes place each year as the flagship event of our annual Leicestershire Innovation Festival.
Previous winners
Dozens of regional entrepreneurs and innovative organisations have been recognised at the Awards. Previous winners have come from across Leicester and Leicestershire and included small and large businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, non-profits, university knowledge transfer projects, and researchers.
Previous winners include:
ACT Medical
Micro-Fresh
Nemaura Medical
WillSow
Earth Sense
Chathealth
Award categories
Award categories reflect strategic innovation and growth sectors in Leicester and Leicestershire, including sustainability, STEM, food and drink, student enterprise, andLogistics.
They also cover LLEP Innovation Board priority sectors:
Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering
Space
Health and Life Sciences
Sport
Lifetime achievements
Each year, the final category of the Awards is the lifetime achievement prize. This is selected by judges to recognise an outstanding individual who has been an inspiring leader of innovation over the course of a whole career.
Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys
The inventor of DNA fingerprinting directly affected the lives of millions of people worldwide by solving paternity and immigration cases, catching criminals and freeing the innocent. His work has received widespread recognition, including his election to the Royal Society in 1986, a knighthood in 1994 and conferment of the title of Honorary Freeman of the City of Leicester in 1993.
Professor Kamlesh Khunti
The Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester helps lead the Leicester Diabetes Centre. He has helped people with diabetes throughout his career, including helping drive research into the impact of Covid-19 at the start of the pandemic. Prof Khunti is also a member of the SAGE advisory group to the Government.
Richard Freeman
The Managing Director of Coalville-based Zeeko helped build two cameras which captured fresh pictures of the 1969 Moon landing site. The market-leading company, which builds precision polishing machines for optics and other complex surfaces, helped build two cameras powerful enough to pinpoint the Eagle lander and equipment abandoned when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin headed home. It also caught tracks left by Armstrong - the first person to set foot on the moon.
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Get involved with Innovative Leicestershire
Collaboration is fundamental to achieving our goals. If you are interested in becoming part of what we are doing then there area host of ways to get involved, from attending an event to relocating your organisation.
