Scotland’s academic innovators were last night celebrated at the Converge Awards ceremony in Edinburgh, with life sciences start-ups dominating, alongside those specialising in product design and net zero-related fields.
Professor Rebecca Goss, founder of X-Genix, a biotech start-up in the process of spinning out from the University of St Andrews, was named the overall Converge Challenge winner, taking home £69,000 in equity-free cash and in-kind business support.
The company's technology is aiming to revolutionise the way that medicines are made by transforming the process of halogenation, which is currently expensive, low yielding and wasteful, creating numerous toxic by-products.
Education and Skills Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, who presented Professor Goss with the Converge Challenge Award, said: “The Converge Awards are an excellent example of what can be achieved when research, innovation and an entrepreneurial mind-set come together and work toward a common goal. From biotech to product innovation, this year's winners have demonstrated outstanding talent and creativity and I congratulate all those that took part in this year’s awards for their efforts.”
The Converge Challenge runner-up prize was won by Professor Emanuele Trucco and veteran chief executive David Bowie of Eye to the Future, a collaboration between the University of Dundee and the University of Edinburgh.
Underpinned by over 20 years of research, its software enables the early detection of glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness, from a simple eye exam.
Other winners included Edinburgh Napier University graduate, Erin Reid of LU Innovations – a menstrual hygiene start-up designing period products for women who enjoy outdoor activities or who work in remote environments.
She won both the Create Change Challenge and the Rose Award, a special standalone prize sponsored by The Royal Bank of Scotland designed to boost female entrepreneurship in Scotland. Reid's joint prize package included £40,000 and more than £10,000 of in-kind business support, as well as a mentoring session with NatWest chief executive Alison Rose.
Winning the Net Zero Challenge, a category sponsored by SSE, was University of Edinburgh undergraduate Niall McGrath, founder of Robocean. His prize package included £30,000 and more than £17,000 of in-kind business support.
Robocean focuses on restoring endangered seagrass meadows using autonomous and remotely operated subsea robotics.
Claudia Cavalluzzo, executive director at Converge, said: “Our 15 winners and runners-up have created game-changing innovations that will make a real difference to health, the environment, society, and more.
“While our awards last night marked the end of the 2022 Converge programme, the work of our winners and wider cohort is very far from over as their journey continues towards commercialisation – helped in no small part, we hope, by the cash prizes they have picked up this evening.”
Further awards were presented to:
- Jessica Birt of Concinnity Genetics, from the University of Edinburgh, who won the KickStart Challenge. Using its own artificial intelligence, the business is looking to increase clinical trial precision by ensuring gene therapy is active only in the right place at the right time, accelerating development times and advancing success of clinical trials.
- There were also runners-up prizes in the KickStart Challenge for Roma Gibb from the University of the Highlands & Islands, with Person Centred Solutions, and Sofia Ferreira-Gonzalez from the University of Edinburgh, with SensiBile.
- Mike Huang founder of Rigpa from the University of Edinburgh won the Cisco Future Tech Award for his next-generation artificial intelligence chip company.
- Hua Wang, founder of Scent No. M from the University of Glasgow, won the inaugural IBioIC Award for his ‘microbial fragrance’, which aims to expand scent catalogues by replacing the harvest of essential oils from plants to those from microbes.
Speakers at the awards ceremony included Professor Sir Jim McDonald, principal and vice chancellor of the University of Strathclyde; Mark Logan, Scotland’s chief entrepreneur; and Dr Caroline Barelle, chief executive of Elasmogen.
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