Categories
“The sky’s no longer the limit, it's the destination.”
Entries open 01 Dec 23 to 17 Feb 24 📅 and there’s something for everyone with +20 categories to choose from.
Background & Principles
In the past few years we’ve seen rapid growth in applications of UAS systems, technology and applications. Wherever you look around the world, this technology (commonly known as drones) is reinventing businesses and their processes, even creating brand new opportunities. Whether it's innovation in media coverage and filmmaking or new capabilities for emergency responders, drones are capable of incredible things. From agriculture to internet access, drones are a multi-purpose tool that offer the potential to reimagine some of the most critical ways humanity operates.
With the rising accessibility of drones, many of the most dangerous and high-paying jobs within the commercial sector are ripe for displacement by drone technology. The use cases for safe, cost-effective solutions range from data collection to delivery, and as autonomy and collision-avoidance technologies improve, so too will drones’ ability to perform increasingly complex tasks.
Airwards has been created as the first global awards platform to recognise and champion positive use cases in the drone industry, across a multitude of sectors. We're aiming to do this by finding innovative, responsible and real-world projects that are having a positive impact in their field and on the lives of people around the world. By partnering with government bodies and trade associations, we hope to advance the drone industry and help achieve public acceptance. Ultimately, our vision is a world in which drones are accepted by the wider public and play a vital role in solving real-world, everyday problems.
We celebrate diversity, evolution and education and aim to inspire a greater understanding of drones and UAS uses around the world. We champion responsible and safe drone use and advocate for use cases in which drones are used as a tool for positive work with tangible outcomes, as well as those that display what a drone for good is capable of across a multitude of different environments.
We are aware of the myriad terminology used in the industry and therefore for the purposes of Airwards and all our documents, including here, where we refer to drones we also mean UAS / UAV and any other current terminology used.
Categories
Category Matrix
MECE
Mutually Exclusive and
Collectively Exhaustive
With drones being used in such a broad variety of industries and capabilities, we initially researched over 100 potential award categories. To make this list more succinct for our inaugural year, we adopted the MECE Principle (Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive) to consolidate this research into our final groups and categories.
MECE is a principle used in the organisation of information that is mutually exclusive: information should be grouped into categories so that each category is separate and distinct without any overlap; and collectively exhaustive: all categories taken together should deal with all possible options without leaving any gaps. The overall benefit of these is that there is no double counting or overlooking of information. As part of our general research, we’ve applied the “Rule of Three” to many of our processes, criteria, matrices, and submissions questions. In our first year, we found MECE the ideal framework to formulate the category choices. We hope to build on this foundation and expand into more categories in the years to come.
When it comes to entering a category, we wanted to create something bespoke considering the unique nature of Airwards.
To direct entrants to the most appropriate category within a group, we classified the groups into the following three areas:
What do you do?
As an entrant, what are the core foundations of your business offering?
TECHNOLOGY
OPERATIONS
SUPPORTING SERVICES
Where do you do it?
As an entrant, where do you apply the foundations of your business? i.e. In which commercial setting do you feature most or play the biggest part?
INDUSTRY / FIELD
Why do you do it?
As an entrant, what do you do to progress the human condition? i.e. How do you support the industry as a whole, or how does your work have an impact on real-world lives?
GIVING BACK
People’s Choice
Here you have the chance to nominate an inspirational individual / company. This year we have 12 to choose from.
YOUR DECISION
By doing this, we hope that entrants can easily identify where their use cases best fit. We hope the matrix also covers all aspects (within MECE) for entrants to enter a number of categories. We regret we are unable to give examples of projects that could fit a category due to potential judging bias.
If still unsure of which category or categories to select for entry, please consult the appropriate group and category definitions, explanations and notes, which are listed below.
Inclusions and Exclusions
Within all categories we welcome submissions across the following list which is not exhaustive: Fixed wing / Multi Rotor / Swarms / Single project / Indoor Use / Outdoor / Charities / Consortia / Size of company / Functionality / Drone type / Maximum take off weight / Hybrid systems / Specifically Military (can only be submitted into Defence/Security Category) / Dual Use (Can go into any).
Please see FAQs for more details about entry requirements, eligibility and categories.
Feedback
We are aware that for this inaugural year there will be a lot of opinions about these groups and category choices. Because of this we openly welcome all constructive feedback and suggestions, please use our contact form to provide your thoughts. Being as specific as to where you see the faults, why but more importantly what you’d add / change all helps us immeasurably for scaling this for subsequent years.
Please include your name, email, company, sector, the group or category you’re providing feedback on, your comments on what could be improved.
See our FAQs page for a full list of questions and answers about Airwards.
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With over 20 categories to choose from, there is something for everyone. It is up to the entrant to select which category is best suited to their work, and we recommend reading the entry criteria for your selected category prior to submission.
Airwards reserves the right to move a submission into another category in the event that he/she deems it fit to do so - in the event of this, you will be informed by the email address associated with your submission.
While we are unable to advise you or discuss your entry directly, we can help if you are having trouble identifying which category to submit your project to. Contact us by heading to our connect page and providing you mark the subject with “Categories” we’ll aim to get back to you asap.
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Register yourself on our website, wait for the emails (oh and 01 December) and from then you’ll be able to submit your entry via our form.
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We’ve provided a handy bit of information about what we define as a USE CASE. On 01 December you’ll be able to find out more about what detailed information each entry needs.
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Our category descriptions and criteria have been written to guide entrants on what content should be detailed in their entries. However, we do not expect square pegs to fit in round holes… Some of your projects might not fit entirely with any one specific category. In these cases, the descriptions and criteria are open to an element of interpretation and rest assured that our judges will still take into account entries that are strongly aligned with the overall context of the category.
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You nominate others (Not Yourself!) and can find out more HERE.
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CP’s may enter Airwards, however they may not enter the category if it is a direct association. Being a CP will not increase your chances of winning an Airward.
