The BCS Chairman’s award, a special recognition award only presented to a venture which has exceptionally contributed for a growth in an industry was awarded to Leapstitch Technologies, which is co-founded by Iresha Somarathna (Sri Lanka, PPRE 2003-04). This award was awarded after a long lapse of 4 years.

Leapstitch further won the award for the best startup of the year and the best IoT application of the year.

Leapstitch is a novel manufacturing model introduced to the apparel industry in 2020. This industry 4.0 disruption technology provides an end-to-end automated manufacturing. Leapstitch system is powered by a fully automated machinery dedicated for sewing and run by operating systems with artificial intelligence and IOT (Internet of Things) concepts. 

With this introduction of cutting-edge technology to the conventional industry of garment manufacturing, it is expected to decrease the factory footprint by over 70%. 

Significantly, Leapstitch technology will enable massive reductions of carbon footprint of the world’s second largest polluting industry. An analyis project for this was carried out by Mitali, Susan, Mohamed and Binura of PPRE 20/22 to identify the carbon footprint reduction potential  “Producing Closer to Consumer in the EU” under the guidance of Dr. Herena Torio in August 2021.

The proof of concept (POC) of this project was completed in July 2021 and now being implemented in multiple locations in the South Asia and in the United States. World famous brands such as Jokey and Hanse have partnered up with Leapstitich and the first factories are expected to be up and running in North Carolina – USA by mid 2022.