Rapid is delighted to have been shortlisted twice at the Elektra 2020 awards, the Oscars of the electronics industry.
The company features in both the Distributor of the Year and the Educational Support Award categories.
These will obviously be awards with a difference, and have been delayed because of lockdown restrictions. As the Elektra Awards organising committee acknowledge: Despite the challenges of the global pandemic, electronics companies worldwide have been busy creating game-changing technologies that are helping to shape the future of the industry. These incredible achievements deserve to be recognised, especially in the light of the unprecedented situation we are all living through.
This is the third time in four years that we have been nominated in the Elektras, a great achievement, said James Bates, Rapid's Managing Director. It has been an incredibly challenging year for every UK business. All the plans we had at the start of 2020 were quickly ripped up last March. Our main strategy became, like so many others, to ensure we continued to operate, to protect our employees and to support our customers and suppliers as best we could. That we were able to do this efficiently says a great deal about our flexibility as a business and the skills of our staff.
We were also very proud to be able to help supply components to several Covid-related health tech projects, and to donate materials in the initial PPE shortage, said Mr Bates.
The Educational Support Award nomination is for the work Rapid did to keep students more engaged during lockdown. The 6-Week STEAM Challenge our education team managed with industry partners such as Arduino and VEX Robotics was intended to help students transitioning to home learning and the challenges of studying remotely and individually. The response we got from the 6-Week Challenge was phenomenal, says Jennifer King, Rapid’s Product Manager for Education. While this can never fully replace the work we would have done in our workshops, school visits and other site-based challenges, it helped tick students’ brains over and may have nurtured a budding engineer or two.
Now in their 18th year, the Elektra Awards recognise technical, personal and business achievements within electronics. Other categories include Design Team of the Year, Manufacturer of the Year and Best Campaign of the Year. The awards will be presented during a virtual event on March 25th 2021.
