WOMEN SECURE FUNDING TO DEVELOP THEIR INVENTIONS

Computer expert’s breast-feeding support app wins national award

Dr Chen Mao Davies, who has created CGI technologies for Oscar and BAFTA-winning films (including Gravity), won her award for her unique breastfeeding support app.

LatchAid deploys 3D interactive and artificial intelligence to help mothers learn vital breastfeeding skills.

Chen, who is based in Cirencester, has spent 15 years undertaking commercial and academic research and development in computer graphics and computer science.

However, LatchAid, was born out of Chen’s struggles as a new mum. “I was determined to breastfeed my child,” says Chen, “but nobody told me how difficult and painful it could be.

“It went on for days with mastitis and thrush; mum and baby crying during feeding time and I felt such a failure. The baby’s weight dropped, and I developed postnatal depression.”

Chen pulled through thanks to an understanding health visitor and other mums who had suffered similar experiences.

“As a technologist, I was shocked by the lack of innovation in this space. We had once a week peer support groups – but what about 2am when you’re lonely and in pain?”

Chen built her app helped by an “army” of female colleagues; top lactation consultants, marketing specialists and women that she worked with when developing CGI technologies for the film industry.

LatchAid can now provide detailed 3D animations to mothers. Mums can also engage with LatchAid’s AI-powered chatbot.

If the chatbot can’t provide the answer, a lactation expert will step in. Mums can also use the app’s peer support network.

Other winners of the Innovate UK programme from across the region include Professor Helen Maddock who founded

InoCardia as a spin-out from Coventry University to make drugs safer through an innovative approach to testing their impact on the heart.

Helen said: “This award will give me more confidence in my abilities as a leader and tech innovator and help to raise the company’s profile.”

Three Bristol women win Innovate UK awards

Georgia Barrie’s Learn.ink platform is based on her experience of building digital products for developing countries and rural populations. Learn.ink was born out of a realisation that the technology they were creating for small-scale farmers could be applied to a much wider variety of sectors. The platform provides an affordable digital training platform able to turn static training content into engaging learning experiences.

Caz Icke, a neurorehabilitation physiotherapist, won her Innovate UK award for a customisable rehabilitation wearable technology through her digital health start-up SoleSense.

Her innovation uses wireless pressuresensing insoles which can be used by clinicians during therapy and by patients independently. Feedback will provide instant performance analysis and activity tracking to motivate self-exercise.

Alice Stephenson will use her award to develop artificial intelligence offering legal advice through her alternative law firm Stephenson Law. In conjunction with building a content platform for start-ups, her project focuses on building an AI-powered interface which answers legal questions with straightforward answers.