Nomination Deadline: June 1st

This award was established by the Geo-Institute of the Society to:

  • recognize individuals or groups responsible for geotechnical innovation early in the creation and adoption life-cycle.
  • recognize Invention, Innovation, Implementation, and Impact associated contributions to geotechnical engineering.

Award

  • The Award will consist of a commemorative plaque with the recipient, award title, and award date.
  • The Award will usually be presented at the annual Geo-Congress but may be presented at a Geo-Institute (G-I) Specialty Conference if the innovation is relevant to that subject area.

Award Categories

The Award is open to geotechnical inventors and innovators as individuals or collaborative groups making significant and sustained contributions to one of the following areas:

  • Instrumentation/Technology: Geotechnical instruments, sensors, technologies, test equipment, hardware, or related systems
  • Process/Methodology: Design methodology, codes and standards, protocols, professional practice, programmatic changes, approaches to solutions, system changes or improvements, relationship or network changes and adaptation, or process workflow improvements. This includes procedures.
  • Services: Design, analysis, construction, contracting, and inspection tools, services, and techniques.
  • Materials/Products: Creation or development of materials and manufactured products used in geo-construction.
  • Adaptation: Includes application of related technologies adapted to geotechnical or geological practice such as non-destructive testing (NDT), Geographic Information System (GIS), or medical imaging.
  • Research and Science: Geologic or geotechnical research transferred into practice, which may include cross-disciplinary topics such as GIS, geo-science, risk, reliability, geo-statistics, simulation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) machine learning and subsets, physics-engines, and game theory applied to geotechnics, etc.
  • Applications: Disruptive, transformative, and significant technologies or applications, including computer software and analysis programs. This also includes computer technologies such as graphics, visualization, data analytics, applied AI, and computational modeling.

Submission Type

Award nominations for an Innovation may be proposed within three submission classes:

  • Individual: This category is best for an individual contributor with distributed or anonymous users. Individuals to the innovator are supported by users with experience or testimonials as part of award submission.
  • Joint/Partner: A joint submission may be between two groups. This category is best for team projects with known creators and implementers. Joint/Partner submissions are awarded to the inventor and the individual(s) implementing the advancement and assisting with the award submission.
  • Team/Group/Organization: Submission is available to innovative groups, companies, organizations, or agencies.

Nominations are for the innovation itself, but the submission type helps the G-I provide appropriate recognition in the presentation of the Award to the innovating individual or group of individuals.

Qualifications

The innovation must have the potential for implementation, future utility, and practical adoption and will be assessed for potential influence, value, or impact on the geo-profession. The impact must be significant or potentially transformative enough to be noteworthy for recognition as an innovation.

The timing and submittal of a nomination should endeavor to capture innovations which are beyond the conceptual phase, after proof-of-concept, but prior to mainstream adoption. Consider nascent development and the following future aspects:

  • Speed/rate of adoption or application
  • Number of adopters
  • Use cases
  • Degree of change, disruption, or impact
  • Other metrics, which may be included by nominators.

Recent innovations which are beyond development and are available for purchase and use within the past 5 years will be considered.

An innovation may be submitted for consideration while in development. It may have but is not required to have achieved implementation at scale in practice and in impacting the profession. Recognizing that innovation is likely to take place on different timelines for each situation, nominations are encouraged whenever the nominator feels appropriate. There is no pre-determined target development period for nominating an innovation.

Nominations for start-up or disruptive technologies are acceptable. It is noted that a great idea in one's eye may never make it to full scale production, but may still have an impact to the profession. Imagine a start up that fails but influences another start up or successful enterprise.

Rules

The following award rules apply

  • The Geo-Innovation Award may be presented annually to recognize an outstanding, collaborative emerging innovation in design, materials, or construction-related research and development. Innovations must be new to the geotechnical profession and industry.
  • The Award is intended to be received by an innovator, which may be an inventor or creator, but depending on the nature of the innovation it may be presented to an individual or group for other roles such as adaptation, application, or technology transfer if those roles represent the innovation to the geotechnical community.
  • At the discretion of the G-I Board of Governors, there may be more than one Geo-Innovation Award conferred each year to acknowledge the breadth of available Award categories and the intent to present the Award to innovators for timely recognition of their achievements.
  • No more than three Geo-Innovation Awards will be selected in one year.
  • The submission deadline is June first for each calendar year.
  • The Award is not restricted to members of the Geo-Institute or ASCE, however, the Award nomination must be made by a G-I member or group of members.
  • Current ASCE staff are not eligible for nomination.
  • The Award is open to academia, consultation, industry, government, and other applicable geotechnical market sectors.
  • No innovation may receive the Award more than once. While no innovation may receive the Award more than once, innovators may be eligible to receive the Award more than once if they have a mutually exclusive role for contributions to different and distinct innovations.
  • The Award will not be presented in the event of conflicting laws, regulations, or other potentially unforeseen circumstances.
  • Awardees must have intellectual ownership of the innovation. The Award will not be presented to an individual or group for others’ work.
  • Nominees not selected in an Award cycle will not be carried over to subsequent years. Nominators may resubmit a new nomination in subsequent years with updated development information. Renomination provides an opportunity for nominators to provide an update on supporting evidence and materials; assessment of the potential impact of an innovation can change over time.
  • The Award is intended for geotechnical and geologic contributors; the Geo-Institute Award Committee (GIAC) is the arbiter of determining if a nomination is compliant with the Award's established requirements and intent.
  • If no nominations are received or if nominations do not meet the minimum selection criteria or are otherwise not supported by the GIAC, the award will not be presented.

Application Process and Nomination

Award nominations are accepted from:

  • Individual G-I members
  • G-I reginal chapter leadership
  • G-I board members
  • Technical Committee leadership
  • Groups of G-I members, committees or chapters

To nominate an innovation, submit a Nomination Packet consisting of the following materials (submit only relevant materials; not all Exhibits may apply):

A one page cover letter signed by the nominator or nomination group including:

  • General description of the innovation
  • Signatures of the nominator(s)
  • Submitter and collaborating parties' information
    • Name
    • Organization
    • Contact address
    • Contact phone number
    • Contact e-mail address
  • Name of the innovation
  • Award category
  • Submission Type (Individual, Joint, Group)
  • Approximate length of time the innovation has been in development
  • Length of time innovation has been available for purchase (if applicable)

Supporting information for the nomination (not to exceed six pages):

  • Provide a brief description of the innovation and its innovative characteristicswith respect to the innovation’s creation, adaptation, use, successful application, ordeployment. Describe the invention, innovation, implementation, and impact, how thenominator sees the utility of the innovation now and in the future.
  • Provide illustrations, figures, infographics, photographs, or drawings thatvisually depict the innovation and/or its application and use.
  • Provide examples of development or user utilization. This may take the formof written testimonials, appearances in business newsletters or trade publications,magazine or journal articles, or references on the web and/or social media.
  • A one page executive summary description of the innovation suitable foradaptation and posting on the Award websites. Nominations not selected will remainconfidential. Award winners will be posted on the website.

The entire nomination packet is limited to 7 pages, including exhibits and the cover letter. There is no prescribed format for the letter or exhibits. Type should be a minimum of 11 point for body text. Captions, footnotes, and other notes on Figures may be smaller, but must be legible.

The G-I will promote the award, award recipient(s), and submission content on the G-I website and social media. Submission information will become public. DO NOT INCLUDE PROPRITETARY OR EMPLOYEE/EMPLOYER PROTECTED INFORMATION IN YOUR NOMINATION SUBMITTAL. Complete the Official Award Nomination form (PDF) and submit the Geo-Innovation Award nominations electronically to [email protected] or by hard copy to:

Aurora Phlegar
Geo-Institute of ASCE
1801 Alexander Bell Drive
Reston, VA 20191-4400

Award Selection Schedule:

  • Award nominations are due June first.
  • The G-I Awards Committee will submit its recommendation to the G-I Board of Governors after nominations are received by the deadline and are reviewed along with other G-I awards.

Award Selection:

  • Submitted award nomination packets will be reviewed by the G-I Awards Committee.
  • The G-I Awards Committee will submit its recommendation to the G-I Board of Governors for their approval.
  • The G-I Board of Governors has final authority on the decision to confer the Award(s).