2025 judges announced for Electronics Excellence Award

Launched at electronica in 2022, this award is the most rigorous and transparent award in the industry.

The judging panel for Electronic Specifier’s Electronics Excellence Award features specially curated industry thought-leaders and electronics specialists.

All entries to the award will be independently scored after being discussed in-depth by our judges. The highest scoring entry will be our winner.

More information about the award can be found here: https://electronicsexcellenceaward.com/

The judges are as follows:

Fabio Violante, CEO, Arduino

Fabio Violante is CEO of Arduino, the company behind the largest open-source hardware and software community in the world, since 2017.

From 2010 to 2015, Fabio served as Chief Technology Officer of BMC Software, following the acquisition by BMC of Neptuny, a startup he co-founded and led before the acquisition. Fabio Violante is also co-founder and Board Member of Moviri group (Akamas, Cleafy, Contentwise). He holds a MSc degree and a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and he was an adjunct professor at the same university.

Vicky Messer, VP of Product Management, RANsemi

Vicky Messer is VP of Product Management at RANsemi with over 30 years of experience in product management, product marketing, research and development in the technology sector, primarily wireless.

Vicky currently leads Product Management, Technical Marketing and partnership activities at RANsemi, and a work item lead and board member of Small Cell Forum (SCF). 

In recognition of Vicky’s work in the industry, Vicky has won multiple awards:

• May 20 SCF Outstanding Individual Contribution award
• May 23, SCF Industry Award 2023 for Women in Wireless
• April 24 Electronics Weekly Women of the Year (Design Focused)

Mark Patrick, Director of Technical Content for EMEA, Mouser Electronics

Mark is responsible for creating and circulating technical content within the region – content that is key to Mouser’s strategy to support, inform, and inspire its engineering audience.

Before leading Technical Content, Mark was part of Mouser’s EMEA Supplier Marketing team and played a vital role in establishing and developing relationships with key manufacturing partners. Mark’s previous experience encompasses hands-on engineering roles, technical support, semiconductor technical sales, and various marketing positions.

A ‘hands-on’ engineer at heart, Mark holds a first-class Honors Degree in Electronics Engineering from Coventry University. He is passionate about vintage synthesisers and British motorcycles and thinks nothing of servicing or repairing either.

Dunstan Power, Managing Director, ByteSnap Design

Dunstan is a chartered electronics engineer providing design, production, and support in electronics to all of ByteSnap Design’s clients.

Having graduated with a degree in engineering from Cambridge University, Dunstan has been working in the electronics industry since 1992. He teamed up with his former colleague Graeme Wintle in 2008 to establish ByteSnap Design – an embedded design consultancy with clients worldwide from Andover to Australia.

Robert Owen, Consultant

Robert Owen created and directed three of the world’s leading industry to university programmes: for Texas Instruments, Imagination Technologies, and RS Components. In parallel, he created and ran a successful media business.

Across a generation he supervised the creation of packages of education materials which provide hands-on learning using industrially-proven technologies. These materials are enabling teachers of the next generation of engineers and programmers, to understand how to solve real-world problems with these technologies. To add strategic depth, in influential universities, he facilitated the development of productive links for joint research and recruitment.

Now in his 30th year in the field of Industry-to-Academia collaboration, working as a Consultant, Robert has unique insight into this market, and a formidable global network of relationships.

James Davey, SVP Sales, Business Development & Product Management at Pragmatic Semiconductor

James has over 24 years semiconductor and technology sector experience, most recently as Vice President, EMEA at eInfochips, Arrow Electronics’ global design services business. In this role he was responsible for leading commercial sales of semiconductor and hardware design services. Prior to this, James held several global commercial leadership positions at Arrow Electronics where he successfully drove revenue growth, market expansion, and strategic partnerships. He holds a degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of the West of England and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Kevin Walseth, Manager, Technical Marketing, DigiKey

Kevin is a thought leader for DigiKey on many marketing initiatives, including startups, makers and innovation. He joined DigiKey in 2012 as a product manager and has been a key part of the technical marketing team since 2016.

Kevin’s role as the technical marketing manager involves frequently meeting with and strategising with suppliers and industry organisations for various programmes and industry initiatives. He also travels to shows, conferences, and events around the world to learn about the latest industry trends and how DigiKey can support and participate in them.

He is a maker at heart and a builder of many things, always looking for the next big technology win. Kevin holds an associate of arts and sciences degree in electronics technology from Northland Technical College and an MBA from Bemidji State University.