image: Bright SCIdea final 2023 view more
Credit: SCI (Society of Chemical Industry)
- Student entrepreneurs from Universities of Leeds, Imperial, UCL, Warwick, the Architectural Association School of Architecture and Lisbon’s Nova University will compete for £5,000 Bright SCIdea prize
- Final to take place at SCI in London on 21 March 2023
The five finalists taking part in this year’s Bright SCIdea final have been revealed – the teams will attend the final on Tuesday 21 March at SCI’s London HQ. Now in its sixth year, the annual Bright SCIdea Challenge is open to budding entrepreneurs with scientific business ideas that could benefit society. The international competition provides training and mentoring for entrepreneurs as well as the opportunity to win funding to help launch their business.
The finalists will pitch their business ideas before a panel of industry experts at the final. These judges will include industrialists, venture capitalists and the guest judge this year will be Emily Wilson, Editor-in-Chief of New Scientist.
Previous Bright SCIdea winners have gone on to grow their businesses and raise further capital. The 2022 winners CardiaTec are developing technology to address cardiovascular disease and recently won £1.4 million of seed funding. 2019 winners LCM (Low Carbon Materials) have gone from strength to strength and were finalists for the Earthshot Prize in 2022.
Sharon Todd, SCI CEO said:
‘This month, the government set out its Science and Technology Framework which outlines how the UK can improve productivity and prosperity through innovative science and technology. These Bright SCIdea finalists will soon be at the forefront of this science revolution and SCI is delighted to help them on their journey. SCI is an innovation hub that works to accelerate scientific innovation out of the laboratory and into industry for societal benefit and the finalists’ multi-disciplinary approaches aim to do just that.’
The 2023 Bright SCIdea finalists are:
- Team AI Innovation – University of Warwick An AI system that can predict synthetic routes for chemical compounds and continuously evolve by learning from the feedback it receives from the companies and institutions that use it.
- Team FoodPrint – University of Leeds A simple scale quantifying the environmental impact of food products for the benefit of consumers
- Team DESProp – Nova University, Lisbon, Portugal Web science/software for researchers, scientists and engineers who are working on sustainable development
- Team Phagel – UCL, London Burn healing technology that fights off antibiotic resistant species.
- Team Electric Collective Group - Imperial College, London and Architectural Association, School of Architecture A shirt that measures the wearer’s ECG electrocardiogram.
If you wish to attend the final on 21 March, please sign up here. More information about the Bright SCIdea Challenge can be found here.