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.

Richard Brook is an experienced angel investor with technology expertise in the field of measurement, instrumentation and control systems. He has over forty years of experience in developing new instrumentation and applications for use in various sectors including manufacturing, space and defence.

He is Co-founder of the investment company E-synergy which has invested in over a hundred companies to date. Richard is also a Director of NPL Management Ltd (the UK’s National Physical Laboratory), and past Chairman of a number of Advisory Boards and Committees for policy development and funding activities in the UK’s Space and academic research sectors. 

Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (1998), He was appointed OBE in 2004 for services to Higher Education and the UK Space Industry.

Professor Alison Noble is the Technikos Professor of Biomedical Engineering, in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, and Associate Head of MPLS Division. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society (2017), the Royal Academy of Engineering (2008) and the President of the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interventions (MICCAI) Society, the international society in biomedical image analysis.

Alison’s research interests are in computer analysis of clinical and biological images and the development and translation into clinical practice of novel methodologies that provide new diagnostic and therapeutic image based biomarkers and software tools for image-based quantification and decision-making. Her research group works in close collaboration with clinicians and industry players. She is also a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of a university spin-out company that is commercialising research from her laboratory (Intelligent Ultrasound Ltd).

She returned to Oxford as a University Lecturer in 1995 to set up a biomedical image analysis group. Biomedical image analysis has since grown to be the largest biomedical engineering activity in Oxford.

Alison has played a leading role in setting up the biomedical engineering undergraduate and postgraduate biomedical engineering teaching and training (MSc and CDT) programmes at Oxford over the last decade. She is a member of both the Oxford University’s Research and Education Committees (from Oct 2013), and has served or currently serves on a number of  committees of the Royal Academy of Engineering and other national organisations as well as numerous research funding agency panels.

John recently stepped down as Chairman of Metaswitch Networks, a leading provider of communications software. He joined the company in 1987 as a software engineer and became Chief Executive Officer, and then Chairman as the company established its leadership in cloud communications software. John graduated from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar with an M.Sc in Computation and a D.Phil in History.

He serves on the board of several organisations including What3Words; KindLink; Techfortrade; Technology Trust and Starfish Greathearts Foundation.

John is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2011) and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.  He was awarded a CBE for services to engineering in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June 2016.

Eric is Professor of Micro-Engineering at Imperial College London. He is the Co-founder and Non-executive Director of Microsaic Systems plc, which develops and markets miniature mass spectrometers. During Eric’s period as Chairman of Microsaic Systems, the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

He has overseen more than 20 research projects which have raised a combined £14million in research funds. Eric has also been a technical advisory board member to two venture capital funds.

Eric was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2011 for his research into micro-engineered devices and their commercial exploitation. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2012.

Chris has a first class degree in Computer Science from Cambridge University where he is now an honorary fellow at Churchill college. He co-founded leading network technology provider Metaswitch Networks and spent many years as the company's Chief Technology Officer.

He is now an active early stage investor, sits on the board of several UK technology start ups and is a Venture Partner at Entrepreneur First. Being blind himself, he is a patron or trustee of three different charities in the sight loss sector. He is also a trustee of The Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Chris was made a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2014 by the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace for his services to engineering. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2006.

Norman has researched a wide variety of microwave and optical devices during his career. He has published some 70 scientific papers and patents while at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (now Qinetiq Malvern).

He is currently the Chief Executive of Catalyst Inc. (formerly Northern Ireland Science Park). It is a peer-driven network providing support for entrepreneurs and innovators, and a project he guided from initial concept to realisation.

Norman chairs the Advisory Board of the Institute of Electronics, Communications and CatTechnology (ECIT) at The Queen’s University of Belfast and is also a visiting Professor at the University of Ulster. He is Deputy Chairman of Matrix, the Northern Ireland Science Industry strategy group, and chairs the steering board of the NI Composite Centre. He has been Vice President (Business and Innovation) of the Institute of Physics and Honorary President of the Association for Science Education in Northern Ireland.

In 2011, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is an Enterprise Committee member and steering group chair for the Enterprise Hub. He has mentored many engineers at the Hub on projects that helped store renewable energy; conserve the black rhino in South Africa, and to extend the life of our ageing national grid infrastructure. Norman leads the Academy’s ‘Engineering SMEs Leaders’ programme, which awards training support and short-term mentoring for engineering SMEs. In 2012, Norman was awarded an OBE for his contributions to science and economic development.

David Hawkes is currently the Director of the Centre for Medical Image Computing at UCL. He was previously Director of the EPSRC and MRC-funded Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration on Medical Images and Signals (MIAS-IRC) that was an £8million six year programme. David also served as Chairman of the Division of Imaging Sciences at KCL (2002-2004). 

He spent 10 years working as a clinical scientist within the NHS before returning to academia. He is co-Founder of IXICO Ltd. (www.ixico.com), a university spin-out that provides imaging solutions to the pharmaceutical industry. 

David's current research interests encompass image matching, data fusion, visualisation, shape representation, surface geometry and modelling tissue deformation. He continues to work promoting medical imaging as an accurate measurement tool and the use of image-guided interventions.

Professor Hawkes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2003.

Daniel McCaughan is a versatile industrial executive who has held senior management and Board level positions in the electronics, telecommunications and defence industries since the early 1970s. As well as managing McCaughan Associates, he is an Emeritus Partner and technical adviser to the leading Irish venture capital fund Kernel Capital Partners. He also sat on the main board of DHSSPS, the Northern Ireland Health Service, co-chaired with the Permanent Secretary the UK Home Office Science Advisory Committee, and chaired UK Foresight in IT, Comms and Media .

Daniel has a wide and invaluable range of experience in technology-based businesses thanks to his long career at high executive level in large and small companies, government departments and universities. This background provides him with unique skills as he has dealt with a wide variety of customers and led major technical projects from component to system level. This gives Daniel exemplary insight to the evaluation of technical product plans and projects, company business planning  and development, preparation of companies for investment, and Venture Capital.

Dr McCaughan has been awarded over 20 patents and has published over 100 book chapters and papers in both technical and managerial subjects. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1992.

Chairman of The Abbeyfield Research Foundation and  Hull Minster Development Trust.

Trustee at Livability, Royal Academy of Engineering, Methodist Independent Schools Trust,  Royal College of Surgeons.

Director of Eva Diagnostics.

Former Chairman/Chief Executive of Smith & Nephew plc.

Former Chair The Abbeyfield Society, Chairman Railtrack plc, George Wimpey plc, Low and Bonar plc, UK Coal plc, Voyage Ltd and a number of companies in the care sector.

Past President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Past President of the Chartered Institute of Management.

Past  Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the University of Hull Governing Council

Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, Chair of The Engineers Trust.