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Celebrating Excellence: Winners Announced at GRX26 Industry Awards Dinner
Australia’s most innovative and forward-thinking mining industry companies and individuals were celebrated at the GRX26 Industry Awards Dinner.
Guests reconnected with peers, celebrated collective achievements, and reflected on the role of Australian innovation in shaping a more competitive, sustainable and future-ready resources industry.
Craig Senger Excellence in Export Award
Winner: Pitcrew AI
The Craig Senger Excellence in Export Award recognises outstanding performance, innovation, and impact in developing and sustaining international markets. The award celebrates both established and emerging exporters that demonstrate strategic thinking, resilience, and measurable outcomes relative to their scale and stage of export development.
Pitcrew AI is an AI-driven automation platform improving efficiency, safety and productivity across mining operations. Designed for complex, asset-intensive environments, it streamlines workflows, reduces manual intervention and delivers real-time operational insights. Its autonomous haul truck tyre inspection technology improves asset reliability while minimising manual checks in high-risk areas. Pitcrew AI has also demonstrated strong export growth, with increasing international adoption and strategic partnerships across key mining markets, reinforcing its ability to deliver measurable operational and maintenance efficiencies worldwide.
Finalists:
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Don Kyatt Spare Parts
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Orway IQ (MillROC)
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Hawk Measurement Systems
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Austin Engineering
Supported by:
Outstanding Innovative METS Company Award
Winner: CorePlan
The Outstanding Innovative METS Company Award recognises a METS organisation that has delivered exceptional innovation with measurable impact across the mining industry. This award celebrates companies that demonstrate originality, practical application, and meaningful contribution to the advancement of the METS sector and the broader mining value chain, both in Australia and internationally.
CorePlan is a digital operations platform purpose-built for mining exploration, helping drilling contractors and mining companies replace manual spreadsheets and outdated legacy systems. The platform streamlines field operations from site preparation through drilling, improving cost validation, team alignment and operational efficiency. With enterprise-grade security, flexible permissions and powerful API integrations, CorePlan enables faster decision-making, stronger compliance and greater control across modern mining operations.
Finalists:
- Talpasolutions GmbH (TALPA)
- APEX Engineering Technology Group
- SafeGauge
Excellence in Resources by a New Professional Award
Winner: Janina Bauer GAusIMM, Rio Tinto
The Excellence in Resources by a New Professional Award recognises professionals in the first five years of their career who has delivered an initiative, project or innovation that is making a meaningful and positive impact in their organisation, their community or the broader resources sector.
Janina Elyse is a graduate process engineer at Rio Tinto whose honours research with Nimy Resources explored a new pathway for extracting gallium from WA primary ore. Designing laboratory testing and process evaluation from the ground up, her work demonstrated technical feasibility while identifying opportunities to reduce chemical use, fresh water consumption and harmful inputs. The project highlighted the potential for primary gallium production in Australia, supporting future critical minerals supply.
Finalists:
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Josephine Emmanuelle Liantono AAusIMM(NP), BHP
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Oliver Quinn AAusIMM(NP), Sedgman
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Elyse Bosch AAusIMM(NP), BHP
Women in STEM and Resources Impact Award
Winner: Anita Parbhakar-Fox MAusIMM, Klohn Crippen Berger
The Women in STEM and Resources Impact Award recognises a woman who has demonstrated outstanding leadership or advocacy that is
inspiring the next generation of STEM professionals.
Anita Parbhakar-Fox has led Australia’s work on the secondary prospectivity of mine waste to identify future critical metals, establishing MIWATCH as a new field of applied geoscientific research focused on generating high-quality pre-competitive data.
She secured AUD$7 million in funding and built a multidisciplinary team to assess 77 mine waste sites for reprocessing and rehabilitation potential. Anita’s work has gained international recognition, with universities seeking her expertise to establish similar programs.
Finalists:
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Kate Flanagan, Hancock Iron Ore
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Jade Singleton FAusIMM, AECOM
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Evelyn Ng MAusIMM, Callidus Group
Sponsored by:
Exceptional Innovation in Mining Award
Winner: BHP
The Exceptional Innovation in Mining Award recognises outstanding innovation that delivers measurable impact within the mining industry. It is open to mining organisations or collaborative partnerships between mining companies and METS organisations that demonstrate how innovation drives meaningful change in operational performance, sustainability, productivity, or safety.
BHP is pioneering the world’s first robotic arm solution designed to potentially eliminate the need for dangerous manual thermal lancing for both smelter tapping and launder cleaning. This innovation combines advanced computer vision, LiDAR and AI technologies to automatically detect and clean buildup around launders. Currently in the trial phase, it promises significant safety improvements and increased production through reduced maintenance shutdowns.
This project is a cross-industry collaboration involving MIRS delivering the robotic arm solution, Worley providing engineering support, BHP Olympic Dam Smelter contributing operational expertise, Trefimet leading lance design, and BHP’s Invent team sponsoring the trial.
Finalists:
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Fleet Space Technologies
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Australian Droid & Robot (ADR)
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Geographe
Champion of Innovation Award
Winner: Dr Dave Lawie FAusIMM, Chief Geoscientist, IMDEX
The Champion of Innovation Award recognises an individual who has made a transformative and sustained contribution to innovation within the mining and METS sector. This award celebrates those who have demonstrated original thinking, measurable impact, and influence across organisations, regions, or international markets.
Dave is an AusIMM Fellow and highly respected leader in mining technology and geoscience who has made a sustained contribution to innovation over many years, as well as a proven ability to translate scientific excellence into practical, industry-wide impact.
As co-founder of ioGlobal, Dave pioneered new approaches to managing and analysing complex geoscientific datasets. Following IMDEX’s acquisition of ioGlobal, Dave has continued to scale these innovations into globally deployed technologies, driving improved exploration outcomes and stronger decision-making across mining.
Through his influence across industry, research and academia, Dave has played a critical role in shaping the future direction of geoscience and mining innovation.