2021’s 5G Innovation of the Year Digital Leaders 100 Award winner announced

5G is positively impacting industries globally, unlocking a broad range of opportunities from driving better decision making to creating outstanding user-experiences. Now in its second year, the aql sponsored Digital Leaders 100 Awards ‘5G Innovation of the Year’ exemplar award champions those projects, initiatives and teams that are leading the way in 5G and demonstrating the wide possibilities and opportunities this future technology enables. The award was judged by representatives of the UK5G Innovation Network and Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN). Seven 5G projects were nominated including; 5G Rural Dorset, Connected Cowes, Eden Universe, Factory 42: Green Planet 5G AR, Live + Wild, Liverpool 5G and Zeetta Networks’s NetSplicer. With its mission to reduce digital poverty for those in need, providing safe, free and accessible connectivity to health, social care and educational services, the Liverpool 5G Create project were triumphant winners. aql’s Senior Vice President (SVP) Group Operations, Shelley Langan-Newton presented the award to Liverpool 5G Create alongside former BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones during an exclusive awards ceremony at London’s Aqua Shard venue.. Shelley Langan-Newton, SVP Group Operations - aql, Ann Williams, Lead - Liverpool 5G Create, Jen Laing, Software Engineer - CGA Simulation, Rory Cellan-Jones The Liverpool 5G Create project was created to build a 5G network designed to benefit local NHS, social care services and other public bodies in a post-COVID-19 world. One of its primary objectives is to ensure it offers a real alternative to current offerings that can’t deliver free 5G-supported health and social care applications or devices. The organisations behind Liverpool 5G’s Create Project are; The University of Liverpool, Blu Wireless and Broadway Partners Ltd. Highly commended in the award were the 5G Rural Dorset and Live + Wild projects. 5G Rural Dorset caught the eye of the judges for its 700MHz deployment demonstrating how 5G can make Dorset a better place to live, work and visit. The research and development project is exploring how 5G can be used to address some specific challenges – public safety, economic growth, food production and environment – as well as create new opportunities in Dorset and rural areas including sensitive environments such as Dorset’s UNESCO-designated world heritage coastline. The Live + Wild project explores the possibilities of streaming live content for broadcast and dispatching raw footage from remote and challenging terrains directly back to editing facilities using 5G. Its live events challenge extreme filming scenarios to test 5G’s capacity to support the needs of the documentary film industry in the UK including caving in the Yorkshire Dales, sea cliff climbing in North Wales and ultra-running across Britain. Professor Adam Beaumont, Chairman & Founder said; “Collaboration has driven 5G to become a powerful intervention to support the next generation of real-time technologies and applications. Delivering enabling technology such as 5G unlocks multiple benefits for society creating a real impact to help improve people’s lives and well-being. This is what the winning project, Liverpool 5G Create has achieved by creating new use cases and applicatications that support health and social care services to positively drive change. I’d like to congratulate the winning project and wish them all the luck for the future alongside the other nominated projects.” “A high quality field of nominees caused the judges to think long and hard about 5G enabled capabilities and the impacts these are having on 5G roll out, businesses and people. The Liverpool 5G Create project demonstrates how practical tools are being used to deploy a 5G network that brings real value to real people. Its ‘haptic hug’ designed to help combat loneliness is a delightful example of a 5G enabled capability addressing human needs,” comments Richard Foggie, Knowledge Transfer Manager - IoT at KTN. “The judges felt that each nominated project has great potential to drive 5G technology with 5G Rural Dorset making great steps towards valuable deployment in agriculture and environmental services and Live + Wild successfully enabling audiences to get ‘up close and personal’ to extreme sports,” Foggie continues. Mary touched on companies who have already taken on the values of the Kindness Economy, even before it was born, and have shown the world that it is possible for businesses to adopt this value system whilst continuing to grow and profit. What the new Kindness Economy quite vividly highlights is the mindset that ‘more equals better’ is not going to benefit us as people or our planet. Those businesses that start to understand the fundamental role they play in the fabric of our lives and balance commerce with social progress in order to thrive will have a much more positive impact on our society. One that will take their organisation into the hearts of many communities.