Time is a precious commodity these days, especially in the second half of the year. This morning on the radio I have heard that there are now 11 weeks to go until Christmas. For the Converge Challenge team it means that the dust is beginning to settle after our Gala awards, which this year took us to the beautiful Barony Hall of Strathclyde University.
It was a very exciting night with 11 awards going to participants from 6 Scottish universities. We had a few firsts that day: the first time the Converge Challenge awards came to Glasgow, the first time representatives from Universities of Stirling and West of Scotland took to the podium to collect Social Enterprise awards. And at the end of the night it was the first time an undergraduate student collected one of the main Converge Challenge prizes. Rebecca Pick, founder of Pick Protection from the University of Strathclyde secured third place in the competition with her revolutionary personal attack and lone worker alarm.
Throughout the Converge Challenge process Rebecca has demonstrated creativity, passion, resilience and ability to learn-true qualities of budding entrepreneur.
"Being part of the Converge Challenge was an incredible experience! Not only did the training help me focus my business plan, it gave me an opportunity to pitch in front of a room full of people that lead to further opportunities and the Converge Team were so supportive throughout the competition. They helped give me the 'fire in my belly' I needed for the final investor pitch! I have taken so much away from being in the Converge Challenge and cannot thank the team enough!"
Rebecca Pick, Pick Protection
On the night Rebecca was one of the four women to collect an award. Hannah Dimsdale from the University of Edinburgh won the inaugural Entrepreneurial Spirit award and Susanne Mitschke from the University of Glasgow collected a prize for best Digital marketing campaign. Another female winner and a runner up of the main Converge Challenge with a total prize of £22,500 was Caroline Barelle from the University of Aberdeen's spin-out Elasmogen for novel drug candidates aimed at the ophthalmology market.
"Disbelief and elation in equal measure pretty much sum up my feelings when we were crowned runners up at the Converge Challenge! I have learnt a lot during this journey and met some incredible people. Critically for me, at a personal level, the words "can do" rang clearly in my head filling me with confidence and the realisation that, yes I can take on the role of a new biotech company."
Caroline Barelle, Elasmogen
Together these inspirational female entrepreneurs have made it another first for Converge Challenge, when 36% of our winners were female, the highest percentage ever. The programme has steadily grown female participation to 31% of our overall applicants. What is even more important is that we retain this percentage through all four stages of the competition demonstrating a very important point that with the right support and training women-entrepreneurs will go places.
Susanne, Hannah, Rebecca and Caroline join the ranks of previous Converge Challenge winners such as Kanika Bansal from Medicen Devise, Eleanor Irvine from BiogelX and many others and we are delighted to see them grow and develop their companies and themselves as prominent role models for women entrepreneurs within STEM subjects.
"Biogelx applied to the Converge Challenge in 2012. Despite only making it to the final 10, the competition experience was highly valuable in terms of developing the business. It encouraged us to consolidate our business strategy into a business plan. Following feedback from the competition judges, we were able to produce a plan that was 'investor ready'. Within 4 months, Biogelx secured both private and public funding which allowed us to spinout and form the Company. We have now grown to a team of 10, are generating revenues across three continents and recently secured Series-A funding to support further growth plans as the company enters the US market."
Eleanore Irvine, Biolgelx
Here at Converge Challenge we are now planning for the next year and the calendar tells me we only have 11 weeks to come up with new ideas that will make 2016 our best year and lets see if we can have even more female entrepreneurs entering the programme.
