Anaemia is defined by a low red blood cell count. It is the world’s second leading cause of disability, with 1.6 billion sufferers globally. Although it has multiple causes, once they are identified anaemia is often curable.

Based on proprietary technology developed at Imperial College, Toby’s start-up company Eva Diagnostics is developing two affordable handheld anaemia diagnostic devices. 

The first one is AnemiPoint, which can be used to identify the presence of anaemia in patients. The other device AnemiStat will identify different types of anaemia. 

This is a market-first development in point-of-care anaemia diagnosis that enables clinicians to provide tailored treatments for patients. Eva Diagnostics plans to focus on the global market and the $1 billion or more spend on anaemia-related costs.

The problem

Sustainable construction demands better management of social and environmental impact. To achieve this, reliable, efficient tools are needed to make sense of large volumes of data across the range of related fields.

The solution

Qflow is a cloud-based platform that enables construction projects to manage their environmental risk and stay compliant with environmental standards.

Qflow brings together machine learning and the Internet of things to capture and analyse environmental data, making it easier to identify and manage risk. This increases productivity and reduces cost while positively impacting the built environment.

The technology connects to existing, on-site systems to automate real-time data collection and analysis. This leads to better informed decisions, more accurate predictions and the ability to generate standardised reports. It reduces costs associated with delays and mitigation processes caused by unmanaged environmental risk. 

Trials have shown that Qualis Flows’ solutions can improve data capture against existing competitors by over 100%. Four pilot programmes are scheduled for spring 2019 to further validate the technology’s use in monitoring aspects such as waste, noise, air quality and vibration.

Brittany Harris brings significant experience in civil engineering as she leads a multi-skilled team of engineers, environmental professionals and software architects as Qualis Flow brings its solutions to market.

Traction

• 2018:  Funding awarded by Entrepreneur First to develop Qflow’s technology
• 2018:  Awarded support from the Geovation Advanced London Accelerator programme for startup development.
• Brittany Harris was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support her work in developing the technology and scale up of Qualis

Wearable technologies are making a massive impact on society, beginning to blur the boundary between human and machine. It is also an exploding commercial market set to be worth $12.6 billion by 2018.

The next generation of lightweight, high performance machines will rely on technologies that are capable of bringing the user as close to a device as possible. 

Peiman has created the first reported nano-display device that uses both optical and electronic property modulation in Phase Change Materials. Peiman’s company, Bodle Technologies, spun out of Oxford University in November 2015, to further advance this technology.

An entirely new class of ultra-thin, ultra-high resolution displays with nanosecond access speed and no power consumption in static mode is now under development by his team. 

This revolutionary display will initially target the rapidly growing microdisplay market compact, projection based displays used in emerging near-eye applications like Google Glass. The first prototypes are currently under development, with a small working device set to be ready within the next 12 months.

A large part of improving transport involves using real-time data on commuter behaviour to design transport networks that can predict, adapt, respond and prevent congestion - before it happens.

Yang has developed an intelligent camera system that gives real-time insight into traffic and commuter behaviour. By combining machine learning with the latest advances in high performance computing, the system produces a unique method of classifying and identifying images in real time.

It is the first camera that can accurately identify cyclists among other traffic, enabling transport operators to observe how cyclists use a city. This means cities can effectively target investment in cycling and create cyclist-responsive smart traffic lights and smart signage.

It also has potential applications in everything from real-time traffic counting to crowd management and security. The technology is being used right now to map how commuters move around railway stations, how buses are really used and to generate insights from the humble car park.

His company, Vivacity Labs, is now working with several major transport operators and already has over 100 cameras in use across Britain.

Chief Product Officer, Mirada Medical Ltd

Mirada Medical uses deep learning technology to develop medical imaging software that improves treatment and care for patients with cancer and other diseases. Its software automates tasks and processes in a range of clinical work, including diagnostic imaging, radiation therapy and interventional oncology, thereby helping to optimise workflows, save time and improve consistency.

The company has developed a range of accessible solutions that easily fit within existing platforms and technologies. Mirada Medical’s products have been installed in over 2,000 hospitals, imaging centres and cancer centres worldwide, supporting clinicians to make better decisions and deliver personalised care. One of its products, developed to optimise treatment for patients undergoing radiotherapy, offers significant time savings when compared to similar technologies.

As Chief Product Officer, Sarah Bond aims to strategically increase revenue and market share through the development of innovative products that will help the company to retain its competitive advantage.

Supported by the SME Leaders Programme, Sarah Bond will have access to workshops, training, mentoring and networking opportunities to help strengthen the skills needed to lead a talented, growing team. This will help her to deliver a complex and ambitious business plan for growth in the rapidly evolving market of artificial intelligence for healthcare. 

Visit Mirada's website here.

CTO, Humanising Autonomy

Humanising Autonomy develops software solutions targeting the human-centred implementation of autonomous technology in the road safety sector. The company combines expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and behavioural psychology to better understand the range of complex human behaviours. It uses this knowledge to predict the actions of vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians, so that autonomous systems can operate with greater safety.

Estimates suggest a two second warning could help prevent up to 90% of all collisions between vehicles and hazards that may lie ahead of them. Humanising Autonomy is building a large, diverse and global data set of human behaviours that takes into account culture and context. Using novel approaches in AI, this data will be used to deliver real-time predictions for different automated driving systems to make roads safer.

In 2019, the start-up partnered with Arriva London and Transport for London to develop new software for driver-assistance systems to improve safety.

Raunaq Bose, CTO, leads the development of Humanising Autonomy’s core technologies. With support from the SME Leaders Programme, his mission is to manage R&D in a responsive way that integrates the company’s goals with the needs of external customers and investors. Structured learning through the programme will help Raunaq Bose to strengthen his leadership skills as the company looks to integrate its technology into real vehicles in urban environments and laying the foundations for deploying its software more widely.

Visit Humanising Autonomy's website here.

CEO, SurePulse Medical Limited

Technologies developed at SurePulse help advance the care of newborns by providing easier access to relevant data. This helps make better clinical decisions in time-critical situations.

Around 10% of babies need some form of stabilisation and resuscitation at birth, equating to around 500,000 babies born in Europe each year. Heart rate is the best indicator of resuscitation success but current methods for heart rate monitoring, such as stethoscopes, can lead to delays and errors. SurePulse Medical’s first product, the SurePulse VS, is a vital sign monitoring system that improves clinicians’ ability to make timely decisions about care pathways. Launched in Europe in 2019, the SurePulse VS is designed for comfort and ease-of-use with sensors embedded in a cap for the baby that provides continuous, accurate vital sign data.

Dr James Carpenter, CEO, has successfully led the company through the early development of the technology and clinical trials. Support from the SME Leaders Programme comes at a pivotal stage as SurePulse transitions from a focus on technology development to one seeking commercial sales and growth.

Dr Carpenter aims to leverage opportunities through the programme to support him with product commercialisation, to help lead a talented, self-driven team and prioritise options that match the needs of a rapidly growing business.

Visit SurePulse Medical's website here.

The problem

Drones can be used to significantly reduce time, cost and risk of structural surveying and inspection, but they generate large quantities of image-related data that can be costly and resource-intensive to process.

The solution

TRIK has developed software that makes drone use for surveying and inspection more accessible. It takes photos and videos captured by drones and automatically turns them into an interactive 3D model that acts as a twin of the real structure.

The technology opens up new possibilities for engineers to visualise sites and structures. Its interactive 3D models can be used to generate insights and also double as a database. They can be used for fast and efficient search, measurement, analysis and comment without the need to visit the actual structure.

It can make drone photography more efficient with processes for auto-tagging images and mapping changes across time. This supports surveyors, asset managers and engineers by making it easier to detect structural changes, predict failure, evaluate risk and maintain sites.

Drone-related services are projected to grow dramatically in the next five years. For example, growth for drone software in asset monitoring and inspection is predicted to reach $7.5 billion by 2022.

Led by Dr Pae Natwilai, an innovator selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Industry list in 2018, TRIK is working with companies to scale its systems and impact the global market for drone software. It aims to achieve this by making drone survey and inspection more accessible, without the need for significant technical expertise.

Traction

• 2017: Dr Natwilai was awarded the Design in Innovation Award by Innovate UK.
• 2018: TRIK accepted into the Geovation programme to support development of the startup.
• 2018: Trik listed as one of the 10 Most Innovative Aviation and Aerospace Solution Providers by Insights Success. 

Dr Natwilai was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support her in bringing TRIK’s solutions to market. TRIK is also funded by Zoopla founder, Alex Chesterman, and LoveFilm founder, Simon Franks.

CEO and Co-founder, Aceleron

Lithium batteries are often discarded with up to 80% of life left. The way they are manufactured limits their capacity for being repurposed. Aceleron aims to change this by delivering services and manufacturing a range of lithium batteries that are easier to repair and recycle using non-permanent assembly methods.

Aceleron’s patented technology makes energy storage more likely by promoting re-use and re-manufacture rather than disposal, leading to reduced lifetime costs. Its circular economy solutions are designed for ease of use at home and in commercial systems. They can also be used for solar energy storage.

Batteries made by Aceleron are lightweight yet robust enough to endure harsh environments, providing an accessible source of energy wherever needed. Current products include residential energy systems for use in places such as the Caribbean that enable efficient energy storage with improved resilience to natural disasters.

Dr Amrit Chandan, CEO, oversees the company’s vision and mission He is responsible for developing strategic partnerships with investors and organisations such as the Shell Foundation. With support from the SME Leaders Programme, Dr Chandan aims to build capacity to scale an international team with commercial and technical expertise, while maintaining a company culture that has a focus on strong results and progress.

Visit Aceleron's website here.

Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng was born in Buxton, Derbyshire in 1936.  Having spent five years living in Canada during his childhood, he returned home towards the end of the Second World War.  He attended King William’s College on the Isle of Man before studying Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

Dr John C Taylor is one of the UK’s most successful and prolific living inventors and, over a sixty-year career, has invented, produced and sold components for numerous electrical appliances around the world. 

While at his company Strix Ltd, Dr Taylor established the business as the world-leading manufacturer of kettle controls.  His research was instrumental in designing the ubiquitous safety switch that turns a kettle off when it boils and prevents it from overheating, and he also designed the 360˚ cordless connectors in modern kettles.

Dr Taylor’s innovations led to the production and sale of almost two billion kettle controls - 75% of the global market.  His inventions in the development of bi-metallic safety critical cut-outs for electric motors are also used in domestic appliances such as hairdryers and fan heaters.  His work has also seen over four hundred patents filed, including automatic windshield wipers, electric motor protectors and cordless kettle connectors and controls, and it is a testament to these components’ visionary design that they continue to be in prolific use today.

Awards

Dr Taylor has been the recipient of many honours including, but not limited to, the following:

• Appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2011 for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of British engineering, innovation and commerce
  
• Appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 New Year honours list for his services to business and horology
  
• Four Queen’s Awards given to the company he started, Strix Ltd. Three are for Export and one is for Innovation, granted for his 360˚ cordless kettle connector, used by millions around the world each day
  
• The Harrison Medal, awarded by the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers for excellence in horology
  
• Awarded the Chancellor’s 800^th Anniversary Medal for outstanding philanthropy from the University of Cambridge, presented by HRH Duke of Edinburgh.
  

He is also an elected Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, and has been conferred Honorary Doctorates from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and Durham University.  When he’s not inventing and innovating, Dr Taylor is a keen aviator, mountaineer, yachtmaster and philanthropist.

Philanthropy

Dr John C Taylor is a committed philanthropist and has made a number of donations in order to ensure that young engineers in the UK have the tools they need to be competitive in a global market.  In 2017, he became the main sponsor of the new Dr John C Taylor Enterprise Hub, affectionately known as the Taylor Centre, in the Royal Academy of Engineering.  He also established in perpetuity a Chair Professorship of Innovation in the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge. 

Following his career in creating electrical control switches, Dr Taylor became well-known for his interest in clocks and is one of the world’s leading experts in the work of John Harrison, an early pioneer of timekeeping and sea clocks. This led him to design and help build the Corpus Chronophage, a large, time-eating clock which that stands proud on the exterior of the Taylor Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.  Dr Taylor donated the clock, alongside a bestowment to make the Taylor Library possible, to his alma mater in order to support bright students of future generations.

http://www.johnctaylor.com/

Sir Robin is a technology entrepreneur most known for his work as ARM Holdings’ founding CEO and Chairman. Under his leadership, ARM  become the world’s leading semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) company with ARM chips becoming the most prolific on our planet. He guided ARM from start-up through flotation on NASDAQ and the LSE in 1998 before retiring in 2007.

Robin first became interested in technology aged 8 and at 13, was running his own radio and TV repair business which lead him to study Electronic Engineering at the University of Liverpool.

Sir Robin’s early career was in electronic design with Rank Bush Murphy and Pye TMC followed by 13 years with Motorola Semiconductors. Prior to his time at ARM, Robin served as the Managing Director of ES2 Ltd. and was the CEO of Henderson Security Systems. In addition to his day-to-day work, Robin served as Chairman of the Open Microprocessor Initiative (an ESPRIT panel advising on the collaborative R&D across Europe). He is a past President of the IET.

Robin was knighted in 2002 for services to the information technology industry, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2002 and Fellow of the Royal Society in 2015. He is a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, and regularly mentors new entrepreneurs and serves as an angel investor and advisor to several UK-headquartered high-tech companies. His hobbies include skiing, tennis, painting and music.

Steve is a leading expert with over 35 years of experience.in the fields of semiconductor device research, nanotechnology and millimetre-wave integrated circuit design.

After founding and leading the Nanoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Glasgow, he co-founded and became Technical Director of Intellemetrics Ltd. His enterprising spirit continued with the foundation of Kelvin Nanotechnology Ltd in 2001.

Steve became Vice-Principal for Research and Enterprise at the University of Glasgow in 2005 where e is responsible for the University’s research strategy and policies. These includes key relations with research sponsors and strategic partners. He also heads up the University’s enterprise activities which has a strong focus on research links with industry and the promotion of spinout companies.

Steve was awarded an OBE for services to the field of nanotechnology in the 2002 Jubilee Honours List and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2007.

Hermann is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Silicon Fen cluster. He  is a co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, alongside Fellow Anne Glover. He has been involved in a number of successful start-ups in his time at Amadeus such as CSR plc, Entropic Research Laboratory (which was later acquired by Microsoft) and Icera (acquired by Nvidia in 2011).

His career began famously as the co-founder of Acorn Computers, responsible for the iconic BBC Micro computer, which led to the development of ARM Holdings, now a global microprocesser giant. He was also founding director at organisations including IQ (Bio), IXI Limited, SynGenix and Advanced Displays Limited.

Hermann was awarded an Honorary CBE for ‘innovative service to the UK enterprise sector’ in 2001, and was made a member of the Government’s Council for Science and Technology in 2004. He was also commissioned to write a report on technology and innovation in the UK by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

In 2012, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his contribution to the translation of science into business. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2002 and holds honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Bath, Loughborough, and from Anglia Polytechnic.

In some of the most male-dominated parts of the engineering world, Jane has shown by example that women are at least as capable as men. Her work in education has been dedicated to keeping the door open behind her for future generations of engineers.

Jane Atkinson is currently Director, Cape Specialist Services part of Cape Ltd, an international leader in the provision of critical industrial services.

Brought up in Middlesbough, her career began as a sponsored engineering student with British Steel in 1990. She worked as a technical advisor at the Teesside Blast Furnace before moving into operations, managing the Cast House at Redcar. During her time in the steel industry she managed many major production units and spent five years with the company in Alabama in the USA. Jane then moved into power generation managing coal and gas fired assets for Sembcorp Utilities Ltd. During that role she was responsible for the operations of the UK’s first Biomass Power Plant.

Jane has won several awards most notably the CBI First Woman Award in Manufacturing and the prestigious Stephenson’s Award for inspiring young people in science and engineering. She is an active member of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Chair of the UK IChemE Board. Jane is also a Governor of Teesside University and an Advisory Board Member of the National Science Museum in London.

Robert is an experienced angel investor and mentor to technology-based start-up businesses in the UK and USA.

He is the founder of the Cambridge Angels, a group of expert technology and biotechnology entrepreneurs who invest in and mentor technology start-ups across the UK.

He is Chairman of two technology startups, Netronome and CCS, and serves on the board of Focalpoint Positioning, Myrtle Software, Featurespace, CRFS and Ubisense. His entrepreneurial experience also involves co-founding FORE Systems, a leader in high-speed data communications, where he was Chief Technical Officer (the company was sold to Marconi in 1999).

Robert was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010.

Jeremy is Chief Technology Officer at Cambridge Display Technology. He is one of the three original inventors of P-OLED, the technology used to create digital displays in devices such as TV screens, computer monitors and smart phones.

He played a major role in transforming early permutations of the invention into a fully manufacturable and marketable technology using new device architectures, materials and manufacturing processes - including the direct printing of full colour LED displays. 

Jeremy's career has also involved working with Toshiba in the UK and Japan to develop quantum electronic and opto-electronic devices. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2009.

Andy’s career in industry has involved co-founding over a dozen spin-outs and start-ups, three of which floated on stock markets. Virata floated on NASDAQ and at its peak had a market capitalisation of $5 billion.

His most prominent successes have come through RealVNC, which won the prestigious MacRobert Award in 2013, and Ubisense plc. Collectively, these two organisations have received five Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.

In academia, Andy heads the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory and is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall and Corpus Christi College. Elsewhere, he served as President of the IET between 2012 and 2013, and in 2007 received a CBE for services to the computer industry.

Andy is co-founder and Chairman of pioneering remote access software developers RealVNC and is also Professor of Computer Technology at the University of Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1996.

Sir Alan is one of the Academy’s longest-serving Fellows, with an illustrious career across the research and technology industry.

He has a PhD in Electrical engineering and has served on more than twenty company and institution boards as either an executive or non-executive director. These have ranged from start-ups to FTSE 100 companies and include Director of Research and Technology and Deputy Chief Executive of British Telecom, Chairman of WS Atkins and deputy Chairman of Experian Plc. He is currently President of the ERA Foundation.

Sir Alan has served on the British Government’s Committee for Science and Technology and the Strategic Defence Review panel, and as Chairman of both the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Engineering Council.

He is a past President of the IEE (now IET) and a Life Fellow of the IEEE (USA). He has been awarded nine honorary doctorates as well as an OBE (1987) and CBE (1995) before he was knighted in 2000.

Sir Alan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1984.