Review

On the evening of Thursday, October 29th 2009 over 200 senior executives, including this year's winners, judges and summit speakers gathered in the flight gallery of the Science Museum in London for The Economist’s flagship event: The Eighth Annual Innovation Awards ceremony.

The nominations opened on March 6th this year and the winners were announced during the course of September and October in the lead up to this prestigious event. 

Acceptance speeches were given by our winners Ray Kurzweil, Steve Sasson, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen on receiving their bevelled glass awards and portraits, including remote speeches from Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, our ‘No Boundaries’ award winner and Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group, winner of this year’s Business process award.

Hear from this year's winners on what The Economist's Innovation award means to them.

At the summit, the following day, The Economist was joined by around 150 senior executives eager to hear from the people behind today's most influential innovations. Key topics included:

• Supporting global innovation to build the post-crisis world
• What ideas people do in recessions
• Innovation at NASA
• Developing The People’s Car. A key-note speech from Ravi Kant, Vice-chairman, Tata Motors

Ravi’s story about the development of the Tata NANO, which made its first European appearance at the Summit, encapsulated the common themes of the day.  The car was on stage in The Dorchester ballroom throughout the discussions, acting as an inspiring reminder of what is possible when people correctly identify what is happening in the world around them – like the need for Indian families to have affordable, safer and greener transport – and apply themselves to what they are passionate about. 

Our winners, speakers and award category sponsors have provided us with their tips for 'Innovating in an economic crisis' - the theme around which the summit centred.

Photos of this year's summit are now available to view. Photos of the Awards ceremony will be available in due course.