Nigerian UK youngster George Imafidon wins Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year Award

NIGERIAN youngster George Imafidon has emerged as the overall winner of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year Award after judges adjudged him to be the best at an awards ceremony over the weekend.

At the awards ceremony which took place on Saturday, RAEng with the aid of the Worshipful Company of Engineers handed Mr Imafidon a cash prize of £3,000 for his outstanding work in engineering along with four others. Mr Imafidon, who emerged as the best among other five young engineers, also received the Sir George Macfarlane Medal on the night for being adjudged the best of the pack.

A spokesman for the awards said:  “Five young engineers who have been outstandingly successful in their respective fields at an early stage of their careers have each won a prestigious award and a £3,000 prize from the Royal Academy of Engineering. All five are winners of the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year competition, awarded by the academy with support from the Worshipful Company of Engineers.

“The overall winner, Extreme-E racing pioneer and social mobility advocate a UK-based Nigerian, George Imafidon, received the Sir George Macfarlane Medal. Named after wartime radar pioneer Sir George Macfarlane, the award recognises the potential of engineers working in the UK who have demonstrated excellence in the early stage of their career (less than 10 years since graduation from their first degree in engineering or equivalent qualification).”

According to the organisers, Mr Imafidon’s feats in engineering including his current work with Sir Lewis Hamilton, as well as his passion for helping young engineers through his platform, Motivez. Mr Imafidon is a performance engineer working with Sir Lewis Hamilton HonFREng’s Team X44 electric racing team to design and run an Extreme-E race car which aims to draw attention to environmental issues by racing in the world’s most remote locations affected by the climate crisis.

“George’s fascination with how things work stems from his formative years spent fixing bikes for his friends in Peckham, in southeast London, a pastime that would eventually lead him to graduate from University College London with a first class Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. In addition to his purpose-driven racing career, George is also chief executive and co-founder of Motivez, a platform and community that has directly supported over 8,000 young people aged 14 to 25 from underrepresented backgrounds to access personalised opportunities, particularly within science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem).

“Motivez delivers a plethora of award-winning grassroots, employability and advocacy programmes to drive systemic change in the Stem sector and develop change-makers who tackle the world’s biggest problems on a local level. George’s commitment to giving a platform to underrepresented voices was further evidenced by his appointment in September 2020 to the board of commissioners for Sir Lewis Hamilton’s commission set up jointly with the Royal Academy of Engineering to address the underrepresentation of Black people in the UK motorsport," the organisers added.

Mr Imafidon said: “The engineer in me was born when I started fixing bikes for free in Peckham and got my first bike at nine years old. I loved building and racing anything I could get my hands on.

“I’ve never seen myself as a genius but I’ve willed myself through most things and focused on learning from the brilliant people around me. I guess I just played to my strengths and barriers are there to be broken.

“Today, I am a humanitarian engineer because my community empowers me. Thank you to Kenny Imafidon and my family, to my mentors, coaches and all of you for constantly putting your trust in me and rallying behind all the work at Motivez, Team X44, Prodrive and beyond."