Professor Florin Udrea wins Royal Academy of Engineering award

Professor Florin Udrea has won a Silver Medal award from the Royal Academy of Engineering in recognition of his outstanding commercial success. He received his medal at the Academy's annual awards dinner at London's Royal Opera House earlier this week.

The Royal Academy of Engineering celebrates the strength and diversity of UK engineering with the presentation of its coveted Silver Medal to outstanding British engineers working in the fields of data, construction, telecommunications and electronics.

The Silver Medal winners of the Royal Academy of Engineering award have achieved significant commercial success in their fields and are recognised for advancing the cause of engineering in this country.

“Our Silver Medallists represent the very best of entrepreneurial British engineering right across the whole spectrum of engineering,” said Dervilla Mitchell FREng, Chair of the Academy’s Awards committee. “From semiconductors, communications and the web, right through to bridges, engineering innovation is contributing more and more to our lives and our workplaces. Gifted engineers like our award winners are developing technological solutions and finding new business opportunities all the time.”

Professor Udrea is both an academic and an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He leads the High Voltage Microelectronics group at the Department of Engineering, is a non-executive director of Cambridge Enterprise, and is the founder of two of the University’s most successful start-ups: Cambridge Semiconductor Ltd (CamSemi) and Cambridge CMOS Sensors Ltd (CCMOSS).

CamSemi is a pioneer in the world of semiconductors, developing and patenting more energy efficient chips. They are currently generating multi-million pound revenue and have 70 employees in offices in the UK, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and the US.

Professor Udrea is also co-founder and CEO of CCMOSS, a company developing revolutionary technology for environmental monitoring. Its miniature gas sensors for CO2 and methane detection are set to replace the expensive, bulky equipment the industry currently uses. At present the company has 15 customers worldwide and a potential growth forecast of £10 million a year.

More information on this year’s four silver medallists can be found here.

Image: Photo credit: Machine à vapeur Merlin by Frédéric BISSON via Flickr