REGIONAL TRAILBLAZERS AMONG 50 ENTREPRENEURS BACKED BY INNOVATE UK

Fifty of the UK’s leading women entrepreneurs – including a number from across our region – have been backed by Innovate UK for game-changing ideas.

From a pedal-powered games controller to an AI digital prehabilitation programme for cancer patients before receiving treatment, Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Awards will empower the women to scale their innovative businesses.

Each winner will benefit from a £50,000 grant, one-to-one business coaching, networking opportunities, role modelling and training.

The Awards reflect the government’s ambition to give more support to women innovators and business leaders.

The entrepreneurs include Sarah Nicolls, from Stroud, founder of Future Piano and concert pianist, who is revolutionising the design of grand pianos with her lightweight, portable yet totally acoustic “Standing Grand”. This innovative product fits in modern homes without compromising on sound while reducing the weight and carbon footprint of a normal grand piano by 60 per cent.

Another entrepreneur is Samantha Payne, from Bristol, who co-founded Open Bionics, a robotics company building multi-grip bionic arms for amputees, which are 3D printed to make them more a ordable. Disney granted the company royalty-free licence agreements, enabling them to produce prosthetics based on fan-favourite characters like Black Panther, R2-D2 and Iron Man. A “Sidekick” app syncs the arm to the phone for personalisation, training and tracking performance.

Dr Rebecca Allam, also from Bristol, is a haematologist who has founded PreActiv, a ‘prehabilitation’ programme using the time people have before a cancer treatment to better prepare them for it. Her innovative

AI-led digital platform creates personalised programmes from the time of diagnosis potentially reducing the risk of complications by 51 per cent, cutting down hospital stays by a third and allowing quicker recovery.

Laura Scanlon, again from Bristol, cofounded Fatima, a research platform that ensures data is ethically collected, securely stored and rapidly analysed. This helps organisations looking to have a greater social impact to better understand the challenges of and to reach vulnerable people who are often overlooked and mistreated, and their data used without their consent or knowledge.

Emma Heathcote-James from Worcestershire founded Little Soap Company in 2008. Since then the business has expanded to four full ranges, with 30 key lines in all the main chemists, supermarkets and online giants. As well as selling kind, quality products, each bar replaces an unnecessary plastic bottle, tub, pot or tube. The company obtained BCorp status in 2020 and all its products are vegan, cruelty free, RSPO Palm, and made in the UK.

“There is currently no option of truly sustainable, plastic-free products in this category in UK supermarkets or chemists,” she said “Seventy five per cent of market share is from just three major players – all using plastic packaging. Quite simply we will shake up what is currently a very unsustainable and un-eco category.”