Oxbotica wins FT Business Award

Oxbotica wins FT Business Award

UKAEA tenant Oxbotica, which is hosted in RACE, won the prestigious FT award on March 16. Part of this success is down to Oxbotica testing a variety of autonomous vehicles on the UKAEA’s roads at Culham in South Oxfordshire. 

Lionel Barber, Editor of the Financial Times, explains the main idea behind the Boldness in Business awards: “In this newly chaotic world, there are a few constants for business. One stand-out is the relentless advance of technology, whether in artificial intelligence, robotics or genetic engineering. Technology has the capacity to make a positive difference to the lives of ordinary citizens, and this is the theme of 2017’s Boldness in Business awards” (see full article here).

Winners are selected by a panel of experts including Lionel Barber and Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman & Chief Executive of ArcelorMittal, who base their decision on a shortlist drawn up by the FT’s global network of bureau chiefs and senior journalists.

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This year’s winners included exciting newcomers such as DeepMind, the artificial intelligence company acquired by Google and Dollar Shave Club, the Californian subscription razor and personal grooming company bought by Unilever.

Graeme Smith, Oxbotica CEO, said: “It’s such an honour to win this Financial Times ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business award. We’ve been ‘bold’ since day 1, when we started with 4 people – we’ve now grown to over 30 and are doubling that this year. We’ve opened up a third office in Oxford, have a fleet of test vehicles housed at Culham Science Centre, as well as a dedicated test track and workshop. This is a really big deal to a small company like us.”

Rob Buckingham, head of RACE, commented: “I remember having a conversation about two years ago with Paul Newman, founder of Oxbotica, about using the roads around RACE. Oxbotica has now completed more than 1000 miles in only a few months and this is set to increase as we have just opened up more of the sites roads for testing. Oxbotica’s cars have become a feature of daily RACE life. We wish them every continued success.”

At this occasion, Financial Times also published an article dedicated to the company: ‘Oxbotica unlocks the potential of driverless cars’.

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