Great Minds Think Light: The Altair Enlighten Award

The automotive industry's only award dedicated to lightweighting and sustainability celebrates a decade of innovation.

The Altair Enlighten Award honors the greatest sustainability and lightweighting advancements that successfully reduce carbon footprint, mitigate water and energy consumption, and leverage material reuse and recycling efforts. An award that garners interest from industry, engineering, policymakers, educators, students, and the public alike, the Enlighten Award showcases the latest and greatest technology innovations dedicated to sustainability.

The Altair Enlighten Award is presented annually in conjunction with the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). This year's Award will be presented on August 1, 2023.

Our Timeline

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Award Categories

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Sustainable Product

The Sustainable Product category recognizes production vehicle (or major system module) embracing emissions reduction, lightweighting, material circularity and safety advances.

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Sustainable Process

The Sustainable Process category recognizes process enabling emission reduction, material reuse/recycling and water conservation advances during manufacturing or engineering phases.

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Module Lightweighting

The Module Lightweighting category recognizes mass reduction of a vehicle module, subsystem or component.

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Enabling Technology

The Enabling Technology category recognizes Technology advancement that enables vehicle lightweighting including a material, production process, design method, or joining technology.

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Future of Lightweighting

The Future of Lightweighting category recognizes process, material or technology that is not yet in production, but has significant potential to advance vehicle lightweighting. This category is open to incubator and startup companies, small-medium sized businesses, research and development institutions, universities and entrepreneurs.

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NEW! Responsible AI

New category in 2023! The Responsible AI category recognizes advancements in Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) deployment throughout the automotive value chain – from design, engineering, operation, production, and in-service. Responsible AI is defined as the practice of designing, developing, and deploying AI with good intention to empower employees, businesses, and people, while also fairly impacting the environment and wider society.

2022 Altair Enlighten Award Winners

Every organization that wins the Enlighten Award joins a distinguished, trailblazing club. Last year's winners - Ford, Toyota, BASF, L&L Products, Shiloh Industries, General Motors, McMaster University, and Nemak – are among the latest organizations to showcase the future of vehicle lightweighting and sustainability.

You can see a complete list of previous winners here.

Interested in the 2023 Altair Enlighten Award?

Download Entry Form

Past Participants

Our Partners

Highlighting the organizations who make the Enlighten Award possible.

 

Center for Automotive Research

Center for Automotive Research

AWARD PARTNER

Auto Bild Japan

Auto Bild Japan

MEDIA PARTNER

Automobil Industrie

Automobil Industrie

MEDIA PARTNER

Automotive Engineering SAE

Automotive Engineering SAE

MEDIA PARTNER

Korean Society of Automotive Engineers

Korean Society of Automotive Engineers

MEDIA PARTNER

Tech Briefs

Tech Briefs

MEDIA PARTNER

Our 2023 Judges

Judging is conducted by an independent panel of judges, led by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). CAR chairs the group of recognized industry experts to select the winning entries in all the categories.


Anant Agarwal
Nissan

Dr. Sarma S R Akella
Mahindra & Mahindra

Professor Harvey Bell
University of Michigan

Brian Brothers
Altair

Josh Brugeman
Fresh Coast Climate Solutions

Vanessa Eriksson
Zenseact

Ryan Gehm
SAE International

Sean Lang
Altair

Dr. Sanjiv Mantri
Tata Motors

Dr. Deborah Mielewski
Dione Solutions

Dr. Saravanan N
Ashok Leyland

Gina-Marie Oliver
American Chemistry Council

Dr. Seshanka Palukuri
Greenko Group

Dr. K. Venkatesh Prasad (Prasad)
Center for Automotive Research

Chris Theodore
Theodore & Associates

Dr. Frank Zhao
Tsinghua University