Simprints took the overall prize at the first ‘Idea Transform’ weekend for its mobile phone-based biometrics project, which allows healthcare workers to collect and check patient information in the developing world.
Aimed at supporting and accelerating projects that benefit and improve society, over 100 people attended the intensive weekend event, held at Cambridge Judge Business School between 20-22 April 2012, including speakers, mentors and judges representing Raspberry Pi, Research in Motion/BlackBerry, Amadeus Capital Partners, Springboard and the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL).
Sponsored and supported by ARM, Red Gate Software and ideaSpace Enterprise Accelerator, the event saw teams pitch and work together on projects in healthcare, education, community and the environment, aided by an experienced group of mentors.
Simprints will benefit from three months’ membership at the ideaSpace Enterprise Accelerator, a co-working and networking facility. Meanwhile each category winner will benefit from ongoing mentoring via the team at Startup Masterclass and Cambridge Resolution, as well as having the chance to attend next weekend’s Silicon Milkround Cambridge. Additionally, two as yet unnamed category winners won the chance to pitch for funding from Cambridge Angels. A special prize for mobile innovation. sponsored by Research in Motion. saw Imvoto win BlackBerry PlayBooks.
The projects were judged by an international panel of investors: Peter Cowley, Mark Cheverton of Red Gate Software, David Gill of St John’s Innovation Centre, Stephen O’Brien of Research in Motion, Hugh Parnell of Cambridge Cleantech, environmental consultant Ian Tod and Paul Smith of Eventility/CamCreative.
Chris Measures, co-founder of Idea Transform, commented:
We started Idea Transform with a desire to unlock and support innovative ideas that can really make a difference to society. However we were blown away by the diversity of projects, the commitment of the attendees and teams and what they managed to achieve in just a single weekend. We’re convinced that many of them can go on to change the world for the better.”
Simprints is based on the winning project from the Global Health Hack Day held by the Humanitarian Centre and CUTEC in March 2012. The winners of that competition, Shruti Badwar, Mariya Chhatriwala and Toby Norman, won places at Idea Transform and were joined for the weekend by James Crosby, Marcos Ikegame and Gail Mayhew in the winning entry.
Keynote speakers for the weekend were:
- Billy Boyle, Co-Founder of sensor company Owlstone Nanotech
- Jack Lang, serial entrepreneur and Raspberry Pi trustee
- Dr Ward Hills, CEO of medical monitoring company Pneumacare
- Alex van Someren, Amadeus Capital Partners
- Jon Bradford, Springboard