A Northern Ireland woman has been given a national award for her entrepreneurial drive which was inspired by personal circumstances.
Susan Kelly, from Derry, is the co-founder of Respiratory Analytics, an AI-led respiratory device, aflo™, for those with asthma. The design comes after she witnessed her partner and two children being hospitalised due to life-threatening asthma attacks.
Almost 90% of sufferers do not master the right technique to get the best benefit from their inhalers and aflo™ has been designed to do this automatically for them.
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Susan is amongst this year’s 50 winners of Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Awards, for those who are developing novel solutions to major social, environmental and economic challenges. Each winner will benefit from a £50,000 grant, one-to-one business coaching, and a suite of networking, role modelling, and training opportunities.
The flagship Women in Innovation Awards is a key part of Innovate UK’s commitment to boosting the number of women entrepreneurs. Innovate UK will give all 50 trailblazers £50,000 and bespoke mentoring and coaching to enable them to scale-up their businesses.
Speaking about her award, Susan said: "It's a terrifying thing to witness a family member having a life-threatening asthma attack. Inhaled medications are the cornerstone of asthma management and I've seen how difficult it is to get inhaler technique right to optimise these drugs, which is why this innovation was born. It's been very hard to keep this Innovate UK Award a secret and I can't wait to get started."
Emily Nott, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Programmes at Innovate UK said each year she is blown away by the "brilliant ideas and talent we uncover through our Women in Innovation programme".
"Despite these challenging economic times, this year’s winners have shown great leadership, passion and resilience in driving their innovations forward," she added.
"Innovate UK will work alongside them now to ensure they have the resources and support required to grow and scale their businesses, while encouraging a new generation of women to get involved in innovation, pursue their ambitions and transform our economy and society."
Details on all 50 women innovators can be found here. If you’re an aspiring women innovator, check out how Innovate UK could support you here.
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