“The Coral Maker team is absolutely over the moon to receive this amazing award for our reef restoration technology” said founder Taryn Foster from the Abrolhos Islands in Western Australia. Autodesk Excellence Awards recognize the people, projects, and technologies behind exceptional contributions to the fields of architecture, engineering, and construction; product design and manufacturing; and media and entertainment. The Autodesk Product Design and Manufacturing Group look for design and manufacturing companies that are making a lasting impact on the world. “Today’s design and manufacturing companies are pushing the boundaries of change, leading to extraordinary outcomes,” said Lori Telles, marketing manager, Autodesk. “The Autodesk Design & Manufacturing group is honored to present Coral Maker with the Autodesk Excellence Award for ‘Making A Better World,’ and we congratulate the inspiring and innovative team at Coral Maker for helping to transform our world for the better.”

About Coral Maker

Coral Maker’s technology combines traditional manufacturing, advanced AI driven robotics and a deep understanding of coral biology to automate parts of the coral restoration process. Currently reef restoration is manual and small scale (tens of thousands of corals per year), however millions to tens of millions of corals are required each year to address the scale of degradation. Coral Maker has developed equipment to mass manufacture premade stone coral skeletons at a rate of 10,000 per day. The skeletons are then rapidly seeded with fragments of living coral using robotics and AI. Supporting products are being developed to target logistical bottlenecks in the process, creating a supply chain and allowing for effective transport and deployment of corals. The technology has the potential to increase the rate and area of coral reef restoration by orders of magnitude.

About Autodesk

Autodesk Inc. is a multinational software company that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Most well known for their software AutoCAD, Autodesk now develops a broad range of software, including Autodesk Inventor, Fusion360, Revit, and animation software such as 3ds Max and Maya, used to for the visual effects in movies such as Avatar, Inception and Frozen II. Through their Technology Centers and the Autodesk Foundation, Autodesk also collaborates with industry innovators, to develop solutions for the world’s most critical social, environmental, and economic problems.