On 23rd June 2011, JKTech’s Dr Ying Gu was awarded the Innovation Heroes Award for 2011 by The Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering at the University of Sydney for his conception and development of the Mineral Liberation Analyser (MLA). This annual award is presented to Australian innovators who have developed new technology, developed it into a product or service, raised capital and commenced sales.

The successful commercialisation of the new technology is a key criteria for winning the award, which has been recognising the achievements of Australian innovators since 2003. Recipients of the Innovation Heroes Award are judged not only on the merits of the innovation itself, but also on the overall benefits, economic and otherwise, flowing to Australia from the innovation. As the inventor of the Mineral Liberation Analyser (MLA), Dr Ying Gu, worked closely with his JKTech team for over a decade to establish the MLA as the global leader in automated mineralogy.

JKTech’s MLA based service bureau business developed into a JV partnership with ALS in 2007 and the MLA sales business, including the MLA IP, was sold to FEI Company in 2009.  Both businesses continued to benefit significantly from the MLA technology, which resulted from research outcomes produced by the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC).