50 of the UK’s leading women entrepreneurs backed by Innovate UK for game-changing ideas
From genetically modifying cells within a patient’s body to cure cancer to AI technology for self-healing concrete, Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Awards will empower four pioneering women from East of England to scale their innovative businesses.
These four women entrepreneurs are amongst this year’s 50 winners of Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Awards 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.
Coinciding with International Women’s Day (Wednesday 8 March), the Awards reflect the government’s ambition to give more support to women innovators and business leaders.
The range of innovations from across the UK are vast, from health tech to education and from protecting lives to new ways to play music. The entrepreneurs from East of England are recognised today on International Women’s Day which is encouraging people to “embrace equity”. They are:
Bakul Gupta, from Stevenage, who has co-founded ImmTune Therapies, a method of genetically modifying cells directly inside the patients that could cure fatal diseases such as cancer in a fraction of the time and cost compared to existing curative therapies.
Chantal Epp, from Cambridgeshire, who has founded ClicknClear, the world’s first music rights licensing platform that enables choreographed sports and fitness coaches to use officially licensed music in their classes and performances such as cheerleading and ice-skating.
Oriane Chausiaux, from Cambridge, Co-founder of Heartfelt Technologies, who has developed the first heart failure device that allows patients to monitor their conditions from home and keep them out of the hospital, easing the NHS burden. Heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalisation in the developed world.
Zijing Li, from Cambridge, Co-founder of Mimicrete, who is the brains behind self-healing concrete – and might prompt the end of the pothole! Self-monitoring technology is embedded into the concrete, alerting engineers to degradation so it can be treated before it cracks or causes safety issues.
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.
Now in its sixth year, the competition drew a record number of 920 applications from women business leaders, 10% up from last year, reflecting the growing number of women-led businesses in the UK (according to the Rose Review Progress Report 2023, 20% of all UK businesses are now led by all-women teams).
Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation programme continues to support high-potential women business leaders from diverse backgrounds. With a passion to support underrepresented innovation talent, 22% of the winners are Black, Asian, or from another ethnic minority group and 12% have identified as disabled.
Commenting on her innovation and Award, Oriane Chausiaux of Heartfelt Technologies said, “I feel incredibly fortunate that Innovate UK has selected me for the cohort of winners and I’m excited to meet inspirational women with whom I will be able to share and exchange ideas. I am a non-native speaker and have experienced the challenges that this can bring starting from my schooling in the UK but here I am, winning this Innovate UK Award. My message is simple: follow your dream and trust yourself.”
Emily Nott, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Programmes at Innovate UK said, “Each year I am 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. 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.”
Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Innovate UK, said, “The Innovate UK Women in Innovation programme is an important part of our many activities to make a real difference to the talent and skills pipeline for UK business innovation by inspiring, involving and investing in greater diversity. I warmly congratulate all the Women in Innovation Award winners and look forward to keeping in touch as they progress.”
Details on all 50 women innovators can be found here: https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/programme/women-in-innovation/women-in-innovation-winners/
