The U.S. Army would like to invite interested entities to participate in the 2023 xTech|International Advanced Manufacturing and Materials competition, a forum for eligible international small businesses and international academic institutions to engage with the Department of Defense, earn prize money, and potentially participate in the accelerator program. xTech|International offers an opportunity for eligible participants to pitch novel technology solutions directly to the DoD. The U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC), Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM), the U.S. Office of Naval Research Global (ONR-G), and the Air Force Research Laboratory have partnered with the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology) (ASA(ALT)), to deliver the 2023 xTech|International competition. The Army recognizes that the DoD must enhance engagements with eligible international small businesses and academic institutions, by: (1) understanding the spectrum of international ‘world-class’ technologies being developed commercially that may benefit the DoD; (2) integrating the sector of non-traditional international innovators into the DoD Science and Technology (S&T) ecosystem; and (3) providing mentorship and expertise to accelerate, mature, and transition technologies of interest to the DoD. The xTech|International competition will consist of two-rounds: (1) Call for concept white papers and optional video (2) Final Technology Pitch event, awarding up to $530,000 in cash prizes to select eligible entities throughout the competition. Ultimately, up to 10 finalists from round one will receive a cash prize of $10,000 each and invitation to demonstrate their innovative technology solutions to DoD challenges. Up to five participants from the finals round will be selected as winners of the competition will have an opportunity to receive an additional grand-prize of $150,000 each. Details on the prize structure are listed in this announcement. In addition to non-dilutive cash prizes, participants will have the opportunity to engage with U.S. DoD and other international partners through information sharing and networking opportunities. Finalists will be entered into the xTech Accelerator to receive intensive mentorship and access to networking events to help grow their companies for DoD and commercial users. The efforts described in this notice are being pursued under the authorities of 10 U.S.C. § 4025 (formerly 2374a, Prizes for Advanced Technology Achievements) to award cash prizes as described in this announcement and 10 U.S.C. § 4003 (Prototype Projects). While the authority of this program is 10 U.S.C. § 4025, the xTech|International competition may generate interest by another U.S. Army, DoD or USG organization for a funding opportunity outside of this event. The interested organization may contact the participant to provide additional information which may or may not result in partnership opportunities. The competition can be used to identify international Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) technology solutions that meet the criteria for award of a follow-on contract for additional proof-of-concept or prototype development. Finalists of the prize competition may be invited to submit a proposal for further development of their proposed technology innovation based on the needs of the Army. The Army may use a contract mechanism of their choice and will notify the participants accordingly. The efforts described in this Notice are being pursued under the authorities of 10 USC 2374a. 

The xTech|International competition is voluntary and open to all entities that meet the eligibility requirements. You may submit more than one submission, all submissions must be submitted in English. The registration information and submission upload must be received by 13:00 GMT on March 2, 2023. Submissions received after the deadline will not be considered. Register now by selecting the xTech|International Advanced Manufacturing and Materials competition tile at: https://www.xtech.army.mil/ All xTech|International competition submissions are treated as privileged information and contents are disclosed to U.S. and International defense civilian and military employees who are part of their host-nation’s Ministry/Department of Defense (MoD/DoD) or designated support contractors only for the purpose of evaluation and program support. Detailed feedback from the judges panel will be provided to the participants throughout each phase of the competition. The purpose of providing this feedback is to help accelerate transition of the technology to a DoD end-user by providing insight on best applications for the technology, suggestions for product improvement for DoD use and recommended next steps for development. However, the Government will not respond to questions or inquiries regarding this feedback. 

Organised by Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and Enterprise Singapore, the Defence Innovation Challenge 2022 supports Singapore’s growth as a hub for the global innovation ecosystem, and offers product innovation and commercialisation opportunities. MINDEF and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) are harnessing new technologies and sourcing innovative solutions to enhance organisational effectiveness as we become digital to the core, and to enhance the working environment to be safer and smarter.

We invite startups and SMEs with cutting-edge technologies to showcase your capabilities and contribute to the growth of dual-use innovation applicable to both defence and commercial sectors. Innovation opportunities include dual-use technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics, which can be applied and scaled to commercial industries such as construction, real estate and commercial aerospace sectors.

More details could be found at:

OIN | Defence Innovation Challenge 2022 (openinnovationnetwork.gov.sg)

The Women's Forum is looking for student's teams to generate tech solutions and applications geared towards reducing gender inequalities, in relation to climate, health, entrepreneurship and tech.

This challenge enables students to put taught courses into practice by shaping real-life solutions and have the chance to pitch to international representatives, top businesswomen, lawmakers and economic agents of change at the Women’s Forum Global Meeting 2022, which will take place in Paris on 29-30 November 2022.

Students can apply until November 6th 2022!

More information can be found here: http://bit.ly/Tech4Women-WomensForum

The World Electronics Achievement Awards (WEAA) honor companies and individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the innovation and the development of electronics industry worldwide. WEAA are praised by many and represent one's leadership and excellent performance within the electronics industry. Join us and vote now!

Click here to vote!

Meet the latest group of tech start-ups that are in this year’s Smart Port Challenge.

Meet PIER71™'s latest cohort of tech start-ups

Autonomous underwater robotics is an exciting challenge in engineering, which participants get to experience at SAUVC. The competition is great learning ground for participants to experience the challenges of AUV system engineering and develop skills in the related fields of mechanical, electrical and software engineering.

More details could be found at SAUVC 2022

We are happy to announce the Real-Robot Challenge 2022:

It is time to test offline reinforcement learning methods in the real world!

Take part in our http://real-robot-challenge.com NeurIPS competition.

The task is to use pre-recorded data to learn how to manipulate a cube with the TriFinger robot. You will then be able to run the policy on a real robot at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in a remote fashion  (as easy as submitting a compute job).

Please encourage your colleagues to take part and spread the word.

https://twitter.com/robo_challenge/status/1549059071332040709?s=20&t=wDuocEfUp6NtUNBSVTGr8A

Annual Review Paper Award

This award is to recognize the influential review paper which has to go through the normal review process and has to be accepted for publication in IJHR. The review paper must perfectly focus on the key issues related to humanoid robotics research.

IJHR will annually award one winner with the cash prize of USD 2000.

The selection procedure is as follows:

1. Any member in the advisory board is welcome to contribute review paper.
2. Any associate editor is welcome to contribute review paper.
3. Any prominent scientist with strong expertise in humanoid robotics research is welcome to contribute review paper.
4. Any received submission will go through the normal review process.
5. In addition, any such accepted submission must be endorsed by all the three Editors-in-Chief.
6. The fully endorsed and accepted submission will receive such award on annual basis.

Most Cited Paper Awards

This award is to recognize those published papers which have stimulated humanoid robotics research due to their visibilities or inspirations that have triggered much more follow-up research works.

IJHR will annually award three winners with the cash prize of USD 200 each.

The selection procedure is as follows:

1. Among all the papers published within the last three years, identity the not-awarded paper with the highest number of citations to receive one award.
2. Among all the papers published within the last six years, identity the not-awarded paper with the highest number of citations to receive one award.
3. Among all the papers published within the last nine years, identity the not-awarded paper with the highest number of citations.
4. Award these three papers with the prizes.

Outstanding Reviewer Awards

This award is to recognize those reviewers who have taken the heavy review works and have helped the authors to improve their manuscripts which have finally been accepted for publication in IJHR.

IJHR will annually award three winners with the cash prize of USD 200 each.

The selection procedure is as follows:

1. Identity the published papers in the last year.
2. Identify the reviewers who have reviewed these published papers.
3. Identify three not-awarded reviewers with the outstanding efforts.
4. Award these three reviewers with the prizes.

Excellent Editorial Service Awards

This award is to recognize those associate editors who have demonstrated outstanding services and efficiencies devoted to the handling of the reviews of assigned manuscripts which have been submitted to IJHR.

IJHR will annually award three winners with the cash prize of USD 200 each.

The selection procedure is as follows:

1. Count the number of papers handled by each associate editor who is still on duty.
2. Identify the top three.
3. Award these three associate editors with the prizes.

More details could be found at:

IJHR Awards for Authors and Reviewers (worldscientific.com)

NTU’s team SINGABOAT has participated in the VRX (Virtual RobotX) competition 2022 organized by RoboNation (www.robotx.org). NTU’s team consists of three student members (Tanmay Samak, Lee Chern Peng, Samak Chinmay Vilas) who are under the supervision of Associate Professor Xie Ming. All of them are from MAE. The VRX competition is an international challenge with 19 international teams in this year. The VRX Competition 2022 uses the VRX simulation environment and takes place in three phases. The final score achieved by NTU’s team makes it to be the winner of the third prize with the cash of US$1000. In addition, NTU's team has also received the awards such as Team with Remarkable Video Submission, Team with Biggest Leap in Ranking from Phase 2 to Phase 3, Team being Phenomenal Open-Source Contributor, and Team with Fee Waiver for RoboBoat Competition 2023. For comparison, NUS’s team for this year’s VRX competition 2022 is ranked at 7th place, and NTU's team is just short of one point behind the second prize winner.

The link below is a video prepared by the NTU's team:

https://youtu.be/jI0Y9ovG-Dg

Students are invited to participate in Seagate's Lyve Cloud Hackathon 2022to conceive solutions to relieve data storage issues, and to revolutionise the future of data storage. Seagate, global leader in mass storage, is looking for innovations to meet its challenge statements regarding ease of access to data and efficient data management.

Lyve Cloud tackles the issues that plague traditional data storage, such as prohibitive costs and vendor lock-in. It is an enterprise cloud storage that offers cost predictability, world-class security security and always-on-on availability to maximise what businesses can do with data. Seagate wants ideas on how Lyve Cloud can help businesses scale without limits. 

Participants are invited to develop the following solutions :

• Connect other public cloud big data software stacks with Lyve Cloud
• Create a solution to connect Lyve Cloud’s audit logs to other public clouds
• Build a data migration and movement solution from other Cloud vendors to Lyve Cloud
• Build a middleware solution on top of Lyve Cloud that serves as media streaming server

They will have the chance to pitch their innovative concept to decision makers, and be rewarded for their ideas. 

The top 3 innovators will be rewarded with cash prizes ranging from SGD$1000 to SGD$8000. Innovators finishing #4 to #8 will also be rewarded with 4TB hard drives.

Interested students can submit their solutions before May 2nd: https://bit.ly/LyveCloudHackathon2022