2018 FLEXI Awards Honor Innovation, Leadership in Flexible Hybrid Electronics

The 2018 FLEXI Awards recognized accomplishments in the flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) sector in 2017. Presented at the opening session of the 17th annual 2018FLEX Conference and Exhibition, in Monterey, CA, the awards spotlighted the following leaders in the categories of R&D Achievements, Product Innovation and Commercialization, Education Leadership and Industry Leadership.
• Product Innovation – E Ink, creator of Dazzle, the world’s largest electronic paper installation, won a FLEXI for product design and ingenuity, and potential market adoption and revenue generation. Made from electrophoretic display technology, the programmable art installation adorns one of San Diego International Airport’s new rental car center.
• R&D Achievement – The Wearable Device for Dynamic Assessment of Hydration team – consisting of GE Global Research, UES, The University of Arizona, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dublin City University and AFRL – won a FLEXI for developing a paper-based biofluid patch that collects sweat for human hydration index monitoring. Award criteria included research approach, originality and commercial potential for expanding the bounds of flexible or printed electronics.
• Technology Leadership In Education – James Turner, research scientist at Binghamton University, won a FLEXI for outstanding leadership and attention to mentoring students during the development of an FHE electrocardiography (ECG) patch. Turner led a group of students through the development which included a multi-disciplinary approach as well as coordination with industry and several academic institutions to correlate reliability data, simulations and optimize design features of the revolutionary patch.
• Industry Leadership – David Morton, formerly with the Army Research Laboratory, won a FLEXI for his dedication to building awareness of advanced flexible hybrid electronics in the broader field of electronics.
• Technology Champion – Robert Reuss, former program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA, won a FLEXI for his extraordinary dedication to growing the flexible electronics industry, early recognition of the impact of large area electronics and strong contributions to helping build the FLEX Conference.