Young Innovators Challenge 2015

29th December 2014

Young Innovators Challenge 2015.

£247,500 made available to recognise invention and forward thinking.

Scotland's young women and men will get the chance to win funding to develop their fresh, life-changing ideas next year.

The Young Innovators Challenge 2015 will open in the coming weeks, following last year's competition which attracted 232 entries. In May this year, 33 winners were recognised, each winning up to £2,500 in cash to further develop their concepts.

Winners included an app, Snap40, which sends mobile alerts to healthcare staff mobiles when a patient starts to show warning signs, and an idea involving recycling used coffee grounds from cafes into a natural and organic plant food.

This year’s Young Innovators Challenge is backed by £247,500 funding from the Scottish Government and is part of the Scotland CAN DO approach to raising and supporting the aspirations and ambitions of our entrepreneurs and innovators. Entries will formally open on February 8, closing on April 8.

Minister for Youth and Women’s Employment Annabelle Ewing said:"Now in its third year, this award is a fantastic opportunity for young people from all academic backgrounds to come up with innovative ideas that could go on to change lives in a wide range of sectors.

"The theme of 2015 is social innovation and entries that could address problems and create opportunities related to healthcare and wellbeing, low carbon and sustainability and smarter communities are invited.

“Last year’s competition showed that an entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Scotland, building on our rich history of invention and innovation. I would encourage anyone with an exciting idea to enter this year and potentially make a difference in the lives of others."

Fiona Godsman, Chief Executive of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) added:“As well as winning cash prizes to move their ideas forward, at least five of last year’s winners had meetings with senior Royal Bank of Scotland staff who attended the awards dinner and were suitably impressed by their ideas. The Challenge could be a real opportunity for budding entrepreneurs."

Laurence Howells, chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council, also said:“I am delighted to continue our funding and support for this exciting competition for the third year running. One of last year’s winners created a warning system for children with diabetes and this is a fantastic opportunity for more young entrepreneurs to develop their equally brilliant ideas.”

One of last year’s winners was Christopher McCann, a fourth year medical student at the University of Dundee, who devised ‘snap40’, a patent-pending early warning health system for the hospital and community environment. A device monitors individual’s health across a wide range of indicators, transmits data wirelessly and is then centrally processed to detect the patterns of deterioration. When a deterioration is detected, a notification is pushed to healthcare staff via mobile devices allowing them to put in place interventions earlier.

Christopher said:“The Young Innovators Challenge has been enormously important to snap40. Through the Challlenge and the support of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise we have, in a very short time, made significant progress in our vision to develop a patient health early warning system for the hospital and community environment. We have now filed a patent, won £40,000 of support from the Scottish EDGE fund, developed our prototypes and business model, applied for SMART:Scotland funding and are now talking with multiple angel and venture capital investment groups about significant funding. The team at SIE go above and beyond to provide contacts and introductions that have proven invaluable to my company. Thanks to the support of SIE and the kickstart that the YIC gave us, there is a real chance of a successful business growing in Scotland, creating jobs and generating wealth.

"I am a strong believer in encouraging young people to start their own businesses and I do not believe universities and entrepreneurship are mutually exclusive. The Young Innovators Challenge is a positive force within Scotland and has a key role to play in the continuing development of a strong entrepreneurial culture."