Toumaz Technology co-founder wins 2009 World Technology Award for Health and Medicine

7 August 2009

Toumaz Technology Limited, a provider of ultra-low power wireless infrastructure for body-monitoring solutions, has announced that its co-founder, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Professor Chris Toumazou FRS (photo on right) has won the 2009 World Technology Award in the Health and Medicine category.

Professor Toumazou, who is also CEO of Toumaz Holdings, was named as this year’s recipient at a gala ceremony last month. The award ceremony was held at the TIME Conference Center, Time and Life Building, in New York, at the culmination of the two-day World Technology Summit.

The prestigious World Technology Awards are given in recognition of those individuals and companies doing innovative work of "the greatest likely long-term significance" in their respective fields. Nominees are proposed by Fellows and Founding Members of the World Technology Network (WTN) — a global community of the key players working in technology, from technologists, financiers and entrepreneurs to government officials, policy analysts and futurists.

Other recipients of an Individual award this year include Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and President Paul Kagame of the Republic of Rwanda. Corporate winners include YouTube (in the category of Communications Technology), Amazon (IT Hardware) and Facebook (IT Software). The corporate winner in the Health and Medicine category was the Mayo Clinic.

World Technology Network Founder and Chairman James P Clark commented: “The World Technology Network was conceived to bring together the most innovative and impactful people and organisations in science and technology today.

"Professor Chris Toumazou is a great example of an extraordinary individual working tirelessly on technologies and businesses that are actively creating the future, as exemplified by the pioneering digital band-aid healthcare product now entering the market through Toumaz Technology. Professor Toumazou’s achievements have been wholeheartedly endorsed by his peers through this award, and we are delighted to welcome him to the association.”

Professor Toumazou said, “I am very grateful to the members of the World Technology Network for this honour. The focus of my professional endeavour has always has been to accelerate the development and adoption of technology that can benefit and improve the lives of people around the world. I am delighted to become a part of a community of innovators that share this vision.”

Professor Toumazou co-founded Toumaz Technology in 2000 to exploit developments in ultra-low power silicon chip technology at Imperial College London. The patented core technology, advanced mixed signal processing (AMx), is the basis for Toumaz’s Sensium technology platform for intelligent, ultra-low power wireless body monitoring.

Professor Toumazou currently holds the Winston Wong Chair in Biomedical Circuits at Imperial College London and is Director and Chief Scientist of the new Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial. In recognition of his outstanding research, he was made a Professor at Imperial College at the age of 33 — one of the youngest ever. He holds 23 patents, many of which are now fully granted in key territories throughout the world, and has published over 320 research papers in the field of RF and low power electronics.

In 2007 he was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal and in 2008 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society — the highest honour in the UK scientific system.

Professor Toumazou led a major campaign to raise £22 million to fund the creation of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London, which opened its state-of-the-art, purpose-built facilities in 2006. By combining the strengths of Imperial’s world class research schools in engineering and medicine, the IBE draws together scientists, medical researchers, clinicians and engineers to drive major advances in key areas of medical diagnosis and treatment, including personalised healthcare, regenerative medicine and biomedical imaging.

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