The problem

Large scale farming operations have well established methods for converting farm waste into renewable fuel and natural fertiliser. Small farms need access to scaled-down, efficient waste management solutions to make sustainable processes more widespread.

The solution

EcoNomad delivers small scale technology for sustainable resource management and agricultural waste reduction. Its sustainable, affordable technologies enable waste recycling and management, empowering smallholding farms and rural communities to be more self-sufficient.

EcoNomad’s range of solutions include a biogas and nutrient recovery system, known as the BioNomad™, that can be used on small farms to turn agricultural waste into biofuels for heating and an enriched liquid fertiliser. The technology was tested and demonstrated to add value during a four-year trial at a farm in London.

Another solution is EcoNomad’s patented technology for low-cost solar water pumping and pasteurisation, which works using passive thermal principles, without the need for electricity or moving parts.

Dr Ilan Adler identified a need for scaled down technologies during work in Mexico that resulted in him setting up a non-governmental organisation and co-founding a social enterprise to promote eco-technologies in rural communities. This inspired later research in the UK that led to the development of EcoNomad.

Following the success of its pilot, EcoNomad has further trials planned in the UK and Mexico, aiming to bring its first products to market in 2019.

Traction

• 2019: London Business School Launchpad programme awarded to spin-out.
• 2019: European Regional Development Fund grant awarded in collaboration with University College London (UCL) and Rothamsted Research (agricultural institution in the UK) for full-scale prototype testing.
• 2018: Support and mentoring provided by UCL Innovation and Enterprise. 
• 2018: Santander Research Catalyst Award granted for early-stage solar technology testing in collaboration with Centre for Scientific Research of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
• 2017: Biogas prototypes in Surrey Docks Farm awarded the UCL Provost’s Public Engagement Award.

Dr Adler was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support him in making sustainable solutions for agricultural resource and waste management more widely available to smallholdings in the UK and Europe.

The fourth industrial revolution is changing every element of enterprise. Companies that innovate throughout the value chain, such as Tesla or Dollar Shave Club, are achieving breakthrough growth, 

While sales and marketing, product development, service and support and back office functions have seen significant digitisation and investment, manufacturing has been left behind. Often not integrated to the wider enterprise and with significant investments in legacy equipment, manufacturing has historically been a very hard environment in which to scale change. There is now a huge opportunity to drive digitisation and innovation in the supply chain to gain a competitive edge. 

George is founder of Make-Sense, which is building on five years of industrial Internet of Things experience in the LPG sector. Make-Sense provides a data collection and analytics platform that empowers the whole supply chain from the shop floor to the top floor to drive radical efficiency and growth improvements.

Make-Sense is working with several of the world’s largest consumer goods brands to radically transform how they can leverage manufacturing as a core part of their growth and efficiency strategies.

The problem

Wearable electronics are often rigid and limited in flexibility because of how they are manufactured. Wearable components often do not bend and stretch with the clothes that they are added to and can have issues with durability, especially when washed.

The solution

Textile Two Dimensional is a University of Cambridge spin-out that makes electronic inks using graphene, which can be printed directly onto textiles. These inks can be layered to create bespoke, functional and wearable electronics. The electronics, and graphene’s electrical and thermal conductivity properties, are integrated into the textiles while remaining flexible and washable. They can be comfortably worn and re-used several times, meaning that they are also cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

The company is working closely with end-product manufacturers to explore development for a range of smart wearables in areas such as personal health, fitness and wellbeing, protection and fashion.

Dr Tian Carey initially explored the potential for the technology during his PhD at the University of Cambridge’s EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Graphene Technology. As a result, Textile Two Dimensional continues to work closely with the Cambridge Graphene Centre to promote innovative research with an emphasis on application.

Traction

• 2018: Textile Two Dimensional and Cambridge Enterprise collaborate to accelerate adoption to market.

Dr Carey was awarded a 2018 Enterprise Fellowship to support him as the team at Textile Two Dimensional grows and the company develops from an ink manufacturer to a wearable systems manufacturer.

CEO and Founder, Snap Vision

Building on a background in computer vision, Jenny Griffiths developed Snap Vision, a company offering visual search-based solutions for the fashion retail and publishing industry.

Snap Vision fuses visual search with fashion to improve the shopping experience. Its solutions turn any image into the start of a search, allowing its users to ‘shop the look’ in a magazine or the real world, and instantly learn more or discover similar alternatives.

The technology combines mathematical rulesets and deep learning algorithms to understand user preferences, including colour, shape and pattern, making it easier for consumers to find items that they want. This results in a better shopping experience and helps retailers to increase conversion rates, improve customer engagement and generate additional revenue.

Jenny, CEO and Founder, leads product development at Snap Vision while also setting a strategy for sales and fundraising. As an SME Leader since 2017, Jenny has benefited from training at the London Business School alongside mentoring support. This has helped her strengthen skills for leading a growing business.

Since receiving the award, Jenny has developed a number of strategic partnerships and successfully secured additional equity investment. This will support Jenny’s goal to rapidly scale the company’s sales cycle in its next phase of growth.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are nearly one million preventable neonatal deaths each year. Keeping the infant warm could save thousands of newborns each day. However, most incubators are too large, complicated and expensive for universal use.

James Roberts became aware of the problem of pre-term deaths in a documentary while studying product design and engineering. He co-founded mOm Incubators Ltd to create a solution, and led the strategic development of a lightweight, collapsible neonatal incubator that maintains a regulated thermal environment for newborns to thrive in.

James is the CEO of mOm and the innovation has won numerous awards. In 2019, he became an SME Leader and says that the programme came at the right time to help the company. “The coaching has allowed me to work through a particularly challenging time for the business and we’ve come out stronger for it.”

The company has recently raised over £1 million in development funding and is preparing clinical investigations while applying for CE marking. In 2021, mOm will start its commercial evaluation phase, aiming to go to market soon after.

Oxford Space Systems' innovative structures, such as its novel large deployable antennas (LDAs), use both conventional and new materials. The LDAs offer significant savings in the build and launch costs of satellites and are lighter, less complex and can be stowed more efficiently than those currently in commercial demand. The development of a flight-worthy LDA is currently viewed as "strategically important" by the European Space Agency.

Although still in its early design stages, Oxford Space Systems is generating significant interest from satellite builders and operators globally and has gained investment from venture capital firms and various private investors.

Oxford Space Systems has the ambitious vision of establishing its position as the centre of excellence, making the UK the go-to supplier for large deployable antenna technology.

• Space Girl YouTube channel
  
• Shefali on Twitter
  
• Interview in Womanthology
  

Shefali is one of the ten winners of our 2016 SME Leaders Programme.

The problem

Robots can be a useful educational resource to engage young people in science and engineering but they can be high in costs which prevents broader accessibility.

The solution

Founder of Robotical Ltd, Alexander, has created an affordable, working robot that can walk, dance, or even be programmed to play football. Targeted at young people from 10 to 18+, the robot is a fun, educational tool for both makers and educators.

Known as Marty, the 3D printable robot has a novel design. Unlike most two-legged robots, it uses fewer motors to control each of the robot’s legs, reducing production and retail costs significantly.

Designed with fun and engaging features, Marty can be used at home or in the classroom as a hands-on educational tool to help children build skills in coding and computational thinking.

Makers can build and adapt Marty using a Raspberry Pi and as an open platform, it can be easily reprogrammed using languages such as Python, Scratch and Javascript.

Marty launched for sale online at Robotical in January 2018 and is now available worldwide. The company also creates and sells resources such as activities and lesson guides to promote digital skills and learning in STEM.

Traction

• 2019: passed 5,000 Martys shipped to more than 50 countries worldwide, and launched edu-packs tailored for formal education, with teacher training approval
• 2018: full launch of Marty, with first four-digit order.
• 2018: named Best New Product at Business Insider's Made in Scotland awards
• 2017: secures a seed investment round of £285,000
• 2016: raises £90,000 in a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo
• 2016: Scottish Edge Award winner

Sandy was awarded a 2016 Enterprise Fellowship to support the development of his affordable robot and to build his startup, Robotical.

The problem

Surgeons need accurate, objective information to support decision making during minimally invasive surgery. They regularly rely on sight for intricate processes such as placing stents - small metallic tubes - in blood vessels in brain aneurysm patients. Better information could improve patient outcomes and save millions of pounds from being spent on corrective surgeries.

The Solution

After her PhD at Oxford in Biomedical Engineering, Katerina Spranger has founded Oxford Heartbeat – a start-up company that has developed a medical device that accurately simulates the behaviour of medical devices inside patient’s brain during surgery.

Engineered to achieve extremely high levels of accuracy, the device improves surgeons’ ability to choose the correct stent for every individual patient. This aims to reduce surgery times, improve patient outcomes, decrease the likelihood of repeat surgeries, and save costs for hospitals and wider society.

The technology has been designed for easy and intuitive use by surgeons. By combining accessibility with precision, this virtual platform has the potential to become an essential tool for minimally invasive brain surgery. The start-up’s plans include exploring the use of its technology to optimise other types of surgery in the future.

Traction

• January 2019: Awarded with the Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst Grant Award
• July 2018: Awarded from SBRI Healthcare, an NHS England funded initiative, to further develop a novel technology
• July 2018: Royal Academy of Engineering Blavatnik Alumni Award winner
•  May 2018: Invited to join the Philips HealthWorks Start-up Program
  
• March 2018: Won “Best Healthcare start-up of 2018” by WIRED Magazine
• February 2018: Awarded the NIHR i4i Connect grant

Katerina was awarded the 2017 Enterprise Fellowship to continue developing this technology and her start-up, Oxford Heartbeat.

When Disabled Student Allowance funding for transcription services and note-takers was abolished in 2016, universities scrambled to find ways of supporting disabled students. Existing transcription services were prohibitively expensive and disabled students were at risk of missing out on hours of lectures each week.

Dr Yunjia Li and Professor Mike Wald founded Synote to address the need for accessible lecture videos. Synote is designed to deliver videos that are less costly and produced quicker than traditional methods. The system automatically generates an interactive transcript and captions from a video or audio copy of a lecture, and can integrate with university lecture-capture systems. 

Synote can process the many tens of thousands of lectures given at universities each year, and users can quickly search through their transcripts for specific topics. The system even creates screenshots for each part of the lecture which can be printed with the transcript. Synote can also be used to automatically translate lecture transcripts into other languages, which can open up university education to a much broader base of international students. A unique ‘feedback loop’ enables students to correct speech recognition transcription errors to continually improve the transcript’s accuracy as the system ‘learns’ how to match new words with sounds.

Southampton University has invested significantly in Synote and other leading universities have expressed great interest. The ability to improve the learning experience of all students and particularly students with difficulties hearing or understanding lecturers, taking notes or attending lectures is of great value and significance to these institutions.

Although Synote was originally developed for universities, it can reduce the cost of captions and transcriptions in any business where video or audio recordings are used.

Former Inaugural Chair of the Enterprise Committee and a long-standing Academy Fellow, Ian Shott CBE FREng has played a prominent role in establishing the Enterprise Hub. His track record of helping businesses in the engineering and life science sectors transform their approach and improve their vision, ambition, business models and enterprise value is an invaluable resource.

Ian is the Founder and former Executive Chair of contract pharmaceutical development and manufacturing company ARCINOVA, which he sold to Quotient Sciences in February 2021 and continues as Senior Advisor to the board. Ian is also the Managing Director at investment and advisory firm Shott Trinova. Prior to his specialist investment work at Shott Trinova, Ian was the founder and CEO of Excelsyn, which was sold to an American multinational in 2010. Earlier in his career he held numerous senior executive positions at multinational life science companies across the globe.

Ian has a wealth of experience with major industry bodies. He is formerly the Chair of the UK government’s Leadership Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and a Governing Board Member of Innovate UK. Ian is also Visiting Professor at Oxford, Nottingham and Newcastle universities.

Read Ian's blog about the Hub's new home.

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.

Naeem Alvi is an award-winning brand strategist and the founder of Notepad. After years of helping fast-growth SMEs and big brands such as Nike, Adidas and RBS Natwest to better leverage their brand, Naeem founded Notepad to connect big brand experience with ambitious tech companies that want to define and scale up their brands effectively and affordably.

 Recent achievements include:

• Helping a smart tech product company to grow from zero to £20,000 in monthly sales (and growing) within four months of trading.
  
• Repositioning and rebranding a global machine parts supplier to boost its growth from £10 million to £41 million within two years.
  
• Rebranding a smart food tech company, leading to them tripling their headcount and turnover (while remaining profitable) in just six months, and successfully being acquired by Samsung.
  

John is Professor of Optoelectronic Systems and Dean of transnational Education at the University of Glasgow.

He moved to Glasgow in 1986, where he established an internationally leading research group addressing linear and nonlinear integrated optoelectronic systems. He developed new integration technologies for photonic integrated circuits based on quantum well devices and quantum well intermixing, which ultimately led to the formation of the spin-out company Intense Ltd in 2000.

Intense developed the world’s most advanced integrated laser systems, bringing monolithic laser arrays together with electronic ASICs and optics for precise energy delivery in a range of applications from printing to material processing. The monolithic laser arrays pushed reliability and manufacturing yields to new levels.

John has extensive experience of operating in both academic and high-technology industrial environments, and as a result has an excellent understanding of spinning out IP and creating commercial value from an academic base.

He has been involved with several start-up companies including Kelvin Nanotechnology Ltd (1997-2000); Compound Semiconductor Technologies Ltd (1999-2000) and Intense Ltd (now Intense Inc) (2000-2009).

John was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2007; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2000; Fellow of IEEE (FIEEE) in 2000 ‘for contributions to development of integrated optics based on semiconductor quantum well devices’; and Fellow of the Optical Society (FOSA) in 2016 for ‘for contributions to quantum and photonics technologies and systems in III-V compound semiconductors’.

Alastair is Head of Analytics and Machine Learning at MDRxTECH, Mishcon de Reya's digital transformation consultancy.

Alastair is a UCL Computer Science PhD with a background in computer vision, analytics, machine learning, blockchain, strategy, and technology innovation. He is an experienced manager and entrepreneur who has built teams in both large and small organisations. He is regularly called upon to audit, evaluate and provide guidance to large scale technology programmes for MDRxTECH clients. An entrepreneurial and dynamic problem solver, Alastair co-founded Satalia, which builds and applies AI technology to solve efficiency problems for organisations such as Tesco and PwC. He also co-founded the venture backed WeArePopUp.com, and helped establish the IDEALondon innovation centre with Cisco Systems.

Alastair continues to maintain an active teaching role in the UCL School of Management (MSc Business Analytics) and Peking University, Beijing (MBA Technology Strategy). His research interests include technology strategy, blockchain, smart contracting and computational law.

Brewster Barclay has been selling, marketing and product managing for more than 40 years in a wide variety of high technology industries including printed circuit boards, both manufacturing processes and capital equipment, 3D circuit boards, online advertising, optical sensors, military chip packaging, radar tubes and software engineering services. Brewster has worked at Zuhlke Engineering, e2v technologies, Clicktream Technologies, Orbotech and PCK Technology Kollmorgen.

The experience of launching new products and almost six years running an internet advertising startup led to Brewster giving back in the form of mentoring early stage and growth startups.  He identified a massive gap in business development, sales support and strategy that angels, accelerators and VCs give to startups. He has focused solely on sharing his experiences in business development sales, sales techniques and the practicalities of day to day sales and lead generation.

He has mentored at the Royal Academy of Engineering for the past seven years as well as for Accelerate Cambridge, Seraphim Space Capital and many other groups.

Vida is a behavioural change coach with over seven years’ experience helping people think differently and positively change lives. She helps people to build connection and balance in order to create a sustainable future for themselves, others and the world. Vida does this as a speaker, trainer and coach, focusing on wellbeing, self-care, belief change, and motivation.

Having worked in prisons and schools as well as the public sector with non-clinical NHS staff and private sector for companies such Telefónica and Wavin, she has a unique insight to share. 

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.

Bill is a leading scientist worldwide in the field of Medical Materials. His major research contributions have been recognised by numerous international awards, medals and memberships.

He has been the Professor of Medical Materials at the University of Cambridge; served as Director of Cambridge Pfizer Institute for Pharmaceutical Materials Science; Cambridge Director of CMI Interdisciplinary Research Cluster in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and Director of University of London Interdisciplinary Research Centre (IRC) in Biomedical Materials. He has been Head of Department, Dean, and Governor at Queen Mary University of London. 

He has been the editor of the Journal of The Royal Society: Interface, the Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine, the Journal of Materials Science, and of the Journal of Materials Science Letters.

Bill is Emeritus Professor of Medical Materials in the University of Cambridge. He is internationally recognised for his pioneering research contributions to biomaterials for medical devices, with awards including the Royal Academy of Engineering Prince Philip Gold Medal; the Royal Society Armourers and Brasiers Company Medal; the Kelvin Medal; the European Society for Biomaterials George Winter Award; the Japanese Society for Biomaterials Medal; the Institute of Materials Griffiths Medal and Chapman Medal; the UK Society for Biomaterials President's Prize; the Acta Metallurgica H.H. Holloman Award and the International Union for Physical Sciences and Engineering in Medicine Award of Merit. 

Professor Bonfield's exceptional interdisciplinary contribution has been recognised by his election to all three UK National Academies as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci).