ITRI TODAY Summer issue 2023

ITRI Took Home Three Edison Awards^TM in 2023

The highly-anticipated 2023 Edison Awards^TM winners were recently revealed in Fort Myers, Florida, and ITRI is proud to be among them. The ITRI team attended the award ceremony and received recognition for three exceptional technological innovations: the Intelligent Radio Frequency Ablation (iRFA), Coordinated Supramolecular Complex (CSC), and Athena Orchestrator—O-RAN SMO & RIC. Out of 400 nominees, ITRI has emerged with an impressive haul of one gold in the innovative service & software solutions category and a silver and a bronze award in the health, medicine, and biotech category. This marks the seventh consecutive year that ITRI has won Edison Awards^TM, achieving its highest number of wins in history.

Executive Director of the Edison Awards^TM Frank Bonafilia expressed his awe towards ITRI’s innovations. “I am really amazed by ITRI. You always come forward with some new innovations to tackle some of the world’s largest challenges. What I find most interesting, though, is that you understand that innovation is failing forward. I think not only did ITRI follow the trend, you led a lot of the trends and that’s just the nature of ITRI, of what you do at ITRI,” he said. Bonafilia also praised ITRI’s eye drop solution which is designed to treat macular degeneration for embodying Thomas A. Edison’s philosophy of “finding a better way,” as it offers a non-intrusive treatment and possibly opens an area for the ecosystem to develop into.

ITRI’s President Edwin Liu expressed his delight at the organization’s performance at the 2023 Edison Awards^TM, saying, “We are honored to receive the highly esteemed awards, with our commitment to pursuing technological innovations and market-oriented R&D that can create new value and benefit the world.” Dr. Liu stressed that the applications of the three winning technologies had been introduced to leading industry players including Metagone Biotech Inc., Compal Electronics, and PEGATRON Corporation. “We are more than happy to see our R&D outcomes moving towards commercialization. ITRI will continue to unleash the momentum of innovation and assist industries in growing R&D capabilities and exploring global opportunities,” he said.

ITRI’s Winning Innovations

Intelligent Radio Frequency Ablation (iRFA) is an advanced image-guided system for treating tumors with pinpoint accuracy. The guidance system helps surgeons locate lesions precisely, which minimizes the wound size and halves the recovery time for patients. iRFA also features a surgical needle electrode that can be adjusted to treat tumors of varying shapes and sizes, making it a versatile tool for cancer treatment. It won a bronze trophy in the sub-category of minimally invasive medicine.

Coordinated Supramolecular Complex (CSC) is a revolutionary eye drop formulation for treating wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). With its therapeutic results that rival traditional intravitreal injections, CSC enables patients to conveniently self-administer the drug at home, eliminating the need for direct injections to the eyeballs and the associated fear and discomfort. This solution also minimizes side effects such as bleeding, inflammation, retinal detachment, and elevates intraocular pressure that is commonly associated with injection-based therapies. It won a silver prize in advanced drug delivery.

Athena Orchestrator—O-RAN SMO & RIC, the gold winner of 5G advancements, is an AI-powered energy-saving management platform for 5G-ORAN private networks. It supports various private networks and brands of base stations, and can be applied to a wide range of fields such as hospitals, entertainment, and warehousing. The platform helps plan a private network in a single click, resulting in an 80% reduction in capital expenses and 50% less deployment and configuration time. Its AI system monitors network traffic and allows idle base stations to hibernate, saving 20% of power consumption.