Teams bidding for glory in Cambridge University Entrepreneurs’ £1k challenge in February are set to unveil game-changing technologies worth billions in potential revenue but carrying the promise of priceless benefits for humanity.

Healthcare and CleanTech are very much to the fore as more than 50 candidates bid for prizes and progress at the CUE showpiece on February 22 at the Wolfson lecture Theatre.

Hot contender OreCell has invented a patent-pending solar cell that can generate electricity cheaper than fossil fuels – and can be on the market straightaway.
            
Another challenger has devised a health monitor that puts a chip into a medicine bottle cap and can be tapped via mobile to ensure patients hit their dosages on time.

Cambridge Stem Cell Systems pitches in with the claim that it will become the major supplier of custom-made human brain neural stem cells and functional neural tissues to academia, biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

Hygenomics will exploit cheap DNA sequencing technology for automated microbial testing – a market worth $3.2bn.

Plays in cost-effective solar power and cheap water battle with e-health and social media ventures in the CUE £1k competition.

Pragmatism screams out of the entry list: Self-Cervix is a safe, home-use cervical smear kit. Using a device similar to a standard tampon, it allows women to take their own cervical cell sample and post it off for both DNA and cytological analysis.

Eighteen million women in the US opt out of cervical screening, citing high costs, discomfort and inconvenience. This product aims to target the market and improve on the competition in terms of user experience and price, cutting front-end expenses with a simple device design.

Plans to diversify into service models, bundled products and the emerging African market will support viable business growth.

CUE co-presidents Jun Chen and Jing Zhang said that this year’s awards ceremony (www.cue.org.uk/) promises to present “a banquet of fresh and exhilarating business ideas, including pitches and poster presentations from all entrants of the £1K competition. Up to 10 £1K prizes will be given out during the evening.

There will also be the chance to network with the CEOs and representatives from Horizon Discovery Ltd, Carpe Diem, EPSRC, ARM, Red Gate Software, Cambridge Angels, Cambridge Enterprise, venture capitalists and CUE mentors.

To get a taste for what’s in store on the night, feast your eyes on this innovation extravaganza:-

Simple Tax Calculator – For a small business, keeping records of sales and expenses over multiple years is time consuming. SMEs want to focus on their business. The Simple Tax Calculator is an easy to use system that keeps all required information in one place and allows sole traders to keep a running total of their tax liability throughout the year.

Cambridge Stem Cell Systems – Aims to become the major supplier of custom-made human brain neural stem cells and functional neural tissues to academia, biotech and pharmaceutical industries. It will provide solutions to establish patient cell-based systems for brain disease modelling and drug screening by 1) generating a collection of patient-derived neural stem cell lines from common neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson’s diseases, and produce stem cell lines of rare diseases on demand; 2) producing optimized neural stem cell culture reagents and tools to suit the research; 3) providing consulting services to help design patient cell based drug discovery platforms.

HAP.com – HAP is a free online software for standard-format CV management, storing and browsing. The product provides time-saving CV creation, processing, updating and archiving solutions for applicants and application management and browsing for recruiters. The unique selling point of the
product lies in CV management by means of smart tags making automatic updates into customised versions of a user’s main CV matching the applications requirements for different positions. With English and Polish-speaking jobseekers and recruiters as its target customers, HAP aims at a huge market sector, witness 135 million LinkedIn users alone.

Working In Film.com – The film and TV industries are very competitive and getting yourself noticed is becoming more difficult. Working In Film.com is a networking website for people working in film and TV designed to showcase talent and promote partnerships through geographical aware searching.
Working In Film hosts jobs, events and films and is free to register and create your talent profile.

Sreijan Mithun, student, Judge Business School – Sreijan has invented a new e-health monitor that works through a chip attached to a medicine bottle cap which records each time a bottle opens. Via the patient’s mobile phone, a reminder message is sent to the patient and caregiver. Data will also be transferred to an e-health record system. The technology has potential use in clinical trials to monitor compliance among busy or elderly people or Alzheimer’s sufferers; in e-health record management; to help physicians proactively monitor side effects and modify prescriptions; and for evidence with health insurance companies, who can deny claims to patients who don’t take their medicine.

Wedu – Wedu provides education financing options and mentorship for underprivileged university students with high leadership potential in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), especially girls. It seeks to initiate a positive cycle of building and developing local leadership talent by identifying students committed to working on local issues, helping them to complete university and giving them access to a global network of mentors. When students return to serve their communities they become mentors to other future leaders while repaying the financing received into a revolving fund to serve more students.

Greenol – Large-scale non-enzymatic production of Bioethanol. A world without abundant and cheap energy is not the future most people imagine, but it is a fact. Bigger and more powerful automobiles, faster air travel, bigger homes, etc. are what most people expect the future to bring. None of these are possible without abundant and cheap oil and natural gas. The first step toward a long term solution is energy conservation. The project would develop a novel strategy to design Bioethanol production plants without the use of expensive enzymatic processes.

TeamThirteen – VirtualGuide. MuseumGuides Inc. (MGI) will completely redefine the museum experience by developing a smartphone app (called VirtualGuide) that will present audio, pictures and videos about the artwork on display. It will not just replace existing audio guides but become a personal guide to the visitor like a human. For visitors, it will provide superior customer service, better functionality, lower costs, better hygiene and souvenir value. Museums will benefit from higher revenue, broader reach, easy update and increased store sales. Becoming the chosen partner for world’s leading museums, MGI will reach a market value of over £150m in less than three years.

Hygenomics – Accurate identification of bacteria is vital for hygiene monitoring. DNA sequencing is the ideal technology for this, as it can distinguish between closely related harmful and harmless germs. Until recently costs have been too high to make sequencing economically feasible. This is changing. Hygenomics will exploit cheap sequencing technology for automated microbial testing, a market worth $3.2bn. Due to its sequencing-based technology, Hygenomics is likely to succeed in areas where accurate test results and avoiding false alarms are essential. Applications include the monitoring of hygiene conditions in food production and in hospitals.

CNSERs – The team has developed a sensing technology to rapidly and accurately analyse the chemical composition of breath. It is looking at incorporating the technology into a handheld test to screen road users under the influence of illegal substances. The technology identifies characteristic signals to unambiguously confirm the presence of a drug in a gas or solution. The team is building a prototype for proof of concept and envisages other applications in the bio-diagnostic industry.

SMARTμCAPS – The billion-dollar global vaccine market is suffering from expensive and inefficient transport and administration of the vaccine antigens. SMARTμCAPS offers an unprecedentedly facile and reliable solution that will revolutionise the market by fabricating uniform microcapsules with customisable functionalities that encapsulate vaccines for better storage, more efficient delivery and easier administration. With its ability to encapsulate a variety of antigens in a single step with stimuli-responsive release and sustained delivery of vaccines, the patent-protected SMARTμCAPS will enjoy sustained competitive advantages over conventional microencapsulation technologies via non-exclusive licensing strategy.

CamPores – Ultracapacitors and pharmaceutical filters underlie very different industries but are the most promising applications of this technology – a method to produce a novel nanoporous material. The manufacturing process is cheap, quick and easily scalable and the pore size can be reliably tuned from 5-100nm with a high degree of uniformity across the substrate. In polymeric form, the substrate has already attracted interest from leading filtration companies. As a porous metal-oxide, it will be a key component of hybrid ultracapacitors, a fast growing industry with applications in grid management and hybrid cars. Other applications include fuel cells and enhanced Lithium-ion batteries.

Memnon Medical – Memnon Medical’s technology transforms the way patient medical records within the UK are stored, transferred and accessed by offering a secure, web-based solution, utilising Cloud computing. Through only a web browser healthcare professionals can maintain a single online record for a patient that can be updated or distributed as a referral at the click of a button. The service’s unique encryption methods, enhanced feature set and simple operation mean that no longer will patients face risks such as medical record loss, prescription duplication and data theft,  posed by current outdated systems still used by most GPs.

TeraWand Systems Limited – Terahertz radiation can be used to identify illicit drugs and explosive substances, which give specific colour signatures when irradiated. This radiation can also pass through soft materials like clothing and paper and, unlike x-rays, is harmless to humans. Handheld terahertz scanners can fill a void in the $130 billion global airport security equipment market by allowing security personnel to easily identify and locate drugs or explosives hidden under clothes or in luggage without invasive methods or sniffer dogs which are potentially unreliable. Such scanners can also find a secondary market in postal facilities for mail screening.

HopSkip – HopSkip connects people when people want to be connected. HopSkip revolutionises how and when people are able to use their mobile phones. It does this by tunnelling connections through the latent mobile phone network on unused and available radio frequency bands. HopSkip utilises software embedded within the mobile phone to search, identify and connect to other roaming mobile phones until a connection with a network provider is achieved. As long as other mobile phones are in the vicinity and are HopSkip enabled, a connection through the latent mobile network to the real network will be established. This technology extends the coverage of existing networks substantially, allowing phone signals to be transmitted down into the London Underground, into concrete buildings and down alleyways. It also considerably extends the boundaries of existing cell-sites. Digital information literally hops and skips through other users mobile phones.  

TPS Limited – With the development of more advance tablet coatings, there is an urgent need for stricter control over tablet coating thickness and evenness, which can only be achieved with better analytical equipment. Terahertz-based imaging devices have recently been developed for studying pharmaceutical tablet coatings. These devices enable continuous, on-line monitoring of tablet coating thickness during the coating process, and can be fitted to existing manufacturing equipment without modifications. These benefits make them superior to current methods. The team believes these devices will be able to rapidly penetrate the $2.2bn pharmaceutical analytical equipment market.

MALSI TRANSLATOR – MALSI translator is a movement-based translation app for the iPhone Touch that translates your expression directly into five different languages by pre-determined movements. Unlike most voice-input apps it works best in any environment with no background noise. To start translating, you launch the app, choose targeted language and perform the movements that have been pre-determined. MALSI then translates the pre-determined movements into appropriate language, displays the translated text, and then speaks it using a synthesised voice with an included vocabulary of words for travellers in a variety situation, including medical emergencies, restaurant settings or general conversation.

Carbitrage – If you’ve bought a second-hand car in the last five years, you almost certainly will have used one of the many online services such as E-Bay and AutoTrader to find the right car at the right price. You also probably found that the right car at the right price was located in North
Wales. Carbitrage says it fixes that. Carbitrage is a dealer-to-dealer spatial arbitrage system that generates revenue from the well-known fact that car prices in some areas are lower than others. This provides an arbitrage opportunity that Carbitrage says it can exploit efficiently and at low cost.

EasyFit - online clothes shopping: Do you hesitate when you shop online for clothing that you can’t try on? EasyFit is a web-based tool that uses your own photos to build a virtual representation of yourself that tries on clothing for you, incorporating your precise measurements and general physical features. It also works for accessories such as jewellery and bags. With EasyFit, you will be able to shop online with more certainty that the clothes you buy will fit and know how you look in them. This useful tool improves the shopping experience for retailer and consumer.

Desktop Genetics – Despite its critical role in biotechnology, the methods of making DNA have barely changed in nearly 40 years. Utilising the founder's years of experience in the biotech industry, Desktop Genetics is developing a revolutionary system for making the DNA that is essential for discovering new medicines and renewable energy sources – the DNA Mini-Bot. The Mini-Bot will be to today's giant lab robots what desktop inkjet printers are to newspaper presses. After providing a cartridge of supplies, the DNA Mini-Bot will automatically run the complex, repetitive reactions needed, while the user focuses on creative thinking and breakthrough research.

Cedric Deur – There are more than 25,000 students in Cambridge. Every year most of them face the same problem, finding furniture for their accommodation, finding the right textbook for their courses or just sourcing some cheap goods. When they finish their academic year they might not need the belongings anymore but future students will. Their priorities are a cheap price and access to the product right now. This venture opens up a student to student marketplace within the same college – no delivery fees, fast, the chance to see a product before buying it and it is all between students.

Self-Cervix – Self-Cervix is a safe, home-use cervical smear kit. Using a device similar to a standard tampon, it allows women to take their own cervical cell sample and post it off for both DNA and cytological analysis. 18 million women in the US opt out of cervical screening, citing high costs, discomfort and inconvenience. This product aims to target the market and improve on the competition in terms of user experience and price, cutting front-end expenses with a simple device design. Plans to diversify into service models, bundled products and the emerging African market will support viable business growth.

Drop-Tech – Droplets for diagnostics and drug discovery PDRA (post-doc)  biochemistry. Cancer biomarker screening relies on High Throughput Screening and accurate detection of rare cells. This is currently done with expensive liquid handling robots, using micro-litres of expensive reagents.  Assays in microfluidic droplets require volumes in the range of pico- to nano-litres (over 1,000 times less reagent), but the current method of making droplets only allow for one sample, or at best a random mix of samples, to be tested at a given time. Drop-Tech bridges the microfluidic and single cell screening markets with an automated droplet-based screening system, paving the way towards personalised medicine applications.

Old Bond – student zoology. The team is a startup offering the world’s first spinning animated ads on bicycle wheels; a real breakthrough in outdoor advertising. Being environmentally friendly, we will use an innovative system, Video Pro, to transfer video-clips, images and animated logos from a computer onto the bike wheels. With such new technology transforming a bike into a work of art, drivers can run an ad on any path or put it at some popular spot around the city. It would be hard to create better advertising for businesses, concerts, festivals or cultural events than eye-catching ads on running or stationary bikes.

Team XII – CΞG Biotechnology combines a demand for chiral pharmaceuticals with a demand for industrial biocatalysis and enables manufacturers to produce high-value drugs using proven and effective enzyme membrane technology. CΞG Biotechnology leverages its in-house chemical engineering expertise to partner with enzyme developers and provide tailor-made processing solutions for its clients. The team believes there is an unexploited market gap in which pharma and biotech companies are not collaborating. Drug producers remain entrenched in traditional, costly and wasteful chemical manufacturing routes whilst industrial biotechs disregard pharmaceutical enzyme sales (less than eight per cent of global industrial enzyme sales). Team XII believes its business will bridge this gap.

Cambridge Interactive Video Solutions – Video data is increasingly used for research, performance analysis and documenting personal events. More than 48 hours of video content is uploaded on YouTube every minute. Cambridge Interactive Video Solutions uses interactive video segmentation technology developed at the CUED to provide tools for cutting out objects in videos with arbitrary backgrounds, and analysing their properties. Revolutionary machine learning algorithms progressively understand the need of the user from only a few mouse strokes. Cut-outs are used for scientic studies: animal behavioural studies, live cell image sequence analysis, performance analysis of sportsmen: pose, motion patterns, general public video editing applications: object removal, enhancement, annotation.

Feel'n'Find – Cambridge is such a lively city. All the time, there is something happening somewhere. But, when you feel like going out and are fed up with always going to the same pubs, seeing the same people, it is actually quite boring to find an original event to go! What if you can discover, with just one click, events that match your mood, and share them with friends? Soon, it will be possible with Feel'n'Find – a new smartphone application designed to make your life eventful.

OneTeam OneShot – People love the convenience of bottled water while on-the-go. But sometimes instead of a whole bottle of water, just a few sips is enough. This team has designed a more convenient bottle 100ml in size that is ideal for travelling, ladies’ handbags, children, patients requiring medication and more. The novel design will use 100 per cent recycled and recyclable materials and incorporates a tear-to-open bottle cap design thereby reducing the diversity of plastics needed. The team will market its product to a range of existing drinks providers, with the most exciting growth potential in the bottled water market.

OneTeam OneLab  – Onelab will provide a cloud-based electronic notebook solution for individuals and laboratory groups working in scientific research. This will eliminate the ‘paper notebook and personal computer’ systems still prevalent today, especially within academia, thus allowing easier and faster access to group as well as private data. With quick, easy installation and a user-friendly interface, OneLab aims to provide all necessary word and information processing software in one package. This long-overdue update to laboratory research will allow greater organisation for individual users and within research groups.

OneTeam NexoChocolates – NexoChocolates will be the first luxury chocolate retailer to grow key ingredients, manufacture and sell products all from within the same building. Employing the increasingly popular concept of vertical farming, the brand will benefit from careful architecture and planning of centrally-located sites within cities to bring to consumers freshly-made environmentally-friendly chocolate bars at affordable prices. Within stores, consumers will have the unique experience of being able to see where their products are grown and produced, catering towards the growing demand for locally sourced foods.

Spartan Sack – The Spartan-Sack is a fitness product for non-constraints exercise with regard to location, time, money, endurance or strength level. SS increases its weight through refillable tap water and it can be emptied and transported anywhere you go; outdoors, indoors, on holiday or work trips - it easily fits your hand luggage on aeroplanes. SS is a 24 hour gym for full-body workout.

Heliomobil – Heliomobil makes affordable solar-tracking heliostats that are designed with the goal of increasing the yield of residential and small-scale commercial solar energy collection systems. Heliomobil's core product supplements marketed solar collection technologies, enabling them to significantly accelerate return-on-investment through increased sunlight availability.

HubCiti – A social enterprise that creates jobs for people in need. It is a real life FarmVille.

Collide – Winner of the Silicon Valley comes to the UK Cambridge Appathon, Collide creates new ways for friends to meet and interact by bringing mobile, local and social together. Collide is a mobile application which tells you when your friends are close and suggests nearby places to hang out and grab a coffee and, as an added sweetener, Collide also provides the user with money-off vouchers for their favourite social spots.

PowerSMART – The UK is spending billions of pounds on programmes to curb energy use in homes. These programmes incentivise retrofits but studies show that behaviour can account for up to half of a home’s energy use.  With industry focused on energy efficient products, the market for behavioural measures is wide open. PowerSMART uses behavioural science and advanced analytics to create customised reports with targeted messages that help people save money and energy through positive behavioural change.

GaitOn – GaitOn aims to aid the prevention of elderly people from falling. Ageing population is a challenge to many countries worldwide and the healthcare burdens associated with falls of elderly people are increasing. By bridging the most advanced technological know-how in gait balance sensors and the engagement of health professionals, GaitOn will develop a wearable gadget that can monitor an eldely person’s walking balance in daily activities and alert an imminent falling event. The growing market size and our efforts to minimise the adverse economic impact of falls will underpin the business opportunity and enduring competitiveness of GaitOn.

42Tasks  – 42Tasks is an online task collaboration, delegation and management tool. Using a simple online and mobile interface, and consisting of only those features which have been found to be most useful, it allows groups, teams and organisations to effectively assign and monitor the progress of the tasks which form part of their daily work. The tool allows the growing number of people who actively participate in a number of separate team-based environments simultaneously to be able to keep track of everything which they and their colleagues need to do.

Health-e – Health-e provides a personalised health and wellness monitoring platform to enhance the health status of patients via the provision of direct control and incentivisation techniques. By collating and processing vital information obtained from the patient and the healthcare provider through an interactive platform, the transfer of objective real time data between patient, physician, and health care system becomes a reality. Health-e will abate growing medical costs to the individual via improvement in time-management, continued monitoring, improved diagnosis and promoting a shift from disease treatment to prevention. The platform intelligently targets downloadable applications, subscription services, and lifestyle-specific advertisements to users.  

Light For All – What benefit can be derived by having self-sufficient electricity in rural areas? In Brazil, Fabio Rosa and his Palmares Project has shown that installing renewable energy generators (solar panels in combination with micro wind turbines) can boost the income of poor farmer’s by 200-400 per cent. Imagine the impact it would have in countries like India, China or Bangladesh. The returns derived from such a project would greatly benefit a wide range of stakeholders (e.g. governments, electricity distribution companies) – potential clients of this company, whose central activity would include installation and management of these micro Rural Renewable Energy generators.

Tap Water – Water is a basic human need which approximately 884 million people do not have access to in the developing world. Within the developed world, however, overpriced bottled water is being sold at prices which recession-hit consumers cannot pay. The main cost for manufacturers of spring water is transporting the product from the source to the countries where the product will be sold. This product ‘Tap Water’ addresses these problems by filtering and bottling tap water within the countries where the product is sold. The product is therefore affordable with 50 per cent of profits being donated to charities including Water Aid.

BioGraph - Graphene biosensors. BioGraph will commercialise production of the graphene sheet by direct exfoliation of graphite in oxide-free ionic liquid. There is a £9bn market and an urgent need for new technology in field of biosensors. The novel approach is based on using switching mood electrochemical technique and non-symmetrical bio-compatible ionic liquid. The ILs will be an eutectic mixture of choline chloride (a vitamin in chicken feed) and urea (a common fertilizer) which will make the cost of the IL about £1/kg. This IL is non-flammable, have wide electrochemical range, good electric conductivity, and more important, it is biodegradable. The source of carbon that will be used is graphite, which is one of the cheapest forms of carbon. Moreover, the apparatus used in the production of the electrode is an inexpensive simple two-electrode electrochemical cell. The team’s expected revenues are £1 million by 2016.

Smart World – Smart World believes that for young people to get the best possible education, learning should be a fun experience. Its team of enthusiastic medical doctors, scientists, illustrators, teachers and game theory experts have combined their skills to create a card game which is educational, addictive and above all fun. Each member of the team has a passion for education coupled with extensive experience in the gaming sector. Smart World has delivered an educational card game the rules of which are simple, yet intellectually stimulating.

Biofilm Solutions – is a team of experienced plastic surgeons and chemical engineers dedicated to enhancing patients’ surgical experience. They have developed a novel, safe, patented, FDA approved compound which reduces capsule formation associated with breast implants. It costs less than 10 pence per implant. In the US  since 1997, the number of women undergoing breast augmentation has trebled to over 300,000 a year. The most common complication associated with breast augmentation is capsular contracture. Estimates vary from 10-40 per cent of breast implants will require removal due to this complication. Biofilm Solutions says its compound improves  implant longevity and reduces complications for breast augmentation surgery.

The Homepage – you can take your business digital by managing invoices, expenses, project schedules and much more online. You can keep in contact with customers and other businesses; apply for jobs, and advertise your services to potential customers. Customers can search and compare businesses in their area; get applications from businesses and customer recommendations, for your job or building project; and take control and manage your projects online.

VocalIQ – VocalIQ aims to become the leading provider of voice interfaces for computer systems. By using novel statistical models of dialogue, VocalIQ can dramatically improve the performance of voice-based systems. Possible applications include automated call centres, mobile applications and car-navigation systems.

Cambridge Scale – aims to develop the world’s most cost effective, least invasive and most compliant weighing device and service for effortlessly gathering long term body mass measurements for use in connected personal health and wellness applications. Body mass data is essential for measuring long term health and wellness. Globally there is an increase in demand for this data due to changing demographic and environmental factors such as increasing life expectancy and increasing sedentary lifestyles. Cambridge Scale’s objective is to use its platform collaboratively with appropriate partners to deliver value in the following market segments: weight management; sleep monitoring; elderly care; heart failure monitoring; sports and  leisure; clinical trials; monitoring of chronic or infectious diseases.

spaceWISE – spaceWISE is a design service for SMEs in ‘Silicon Fen.’ Using a proven expertise in spatial design, spaceWISE aims to change people's lives, work, and help businesses to become more productive and profitable.
Many startups and smaller businesses do not have the time, resources, finances or knowledge to create a working environment that best suits their needs and reflects the nature of their business. spaceWISE says it can help them design and rearrange space in a much more inspirational way by reflecting the business philosophy and its identity.

SafeCell – Traditional methods of cell preservation employ toxic agents with potential risk of adverse effects in clinical transplant patients. SafeCell deploys an alternative non-toxic protectant technology for cell freezing and dried state conditions, given the possibility of room temperature storage while maintaining the cell functionality. SafeCell products will be commercialised in the stem cells industry – key platform for regenerative medicine – with a market value of £17.2 billion; the CHO cell area - the most widely used mammalian cell line for biopharmaceuticals manufacture - with a market value of £19.4 billion; and the Biobanking segment with a market value of £11.4 billion.

Cambridge Biocompatibility – The team is developing new biocompatible coatings for all forms of orthopaedic and prosthetic surgery that will increase the lifetime by at least a factor of five and reduce recovery and aftercare costs by a factor of 10. Total product lifetime savings will be the major pricing driver for this new portfolio of biocompatible coatings. The team is requesting £100,000 venture capital and expects a company valuation of £60 million within five years.

DoctorsDoor – DoctorsDoor seeks to create an online community where physicians can disseminate accurate information, patients can share their own experience, and support groups for disease sufferers can be strengthened. Users will be able to hear about the experiences of other patients by connecting through video. This will allow them to talk about treatment plans that did or did not work, as well as emotionally support one another. Additionally, physicians will be able to provide clinically relevant content to educate patients and help them prepare for treatment. DoctorsDoor is a one-stop shop for patients, family, and physicians.

Low Cost Lighting Project – The poorest countries are located within the tropics where the sun sets at 6pm. With no electricity and lighting, children cannot study and adults cannot work. LED lighting coupled with solar power is a practical, proven lighting method. It is a social enterprise with the aim of distributing robust all-in-one-solar-powered LED lighting units (LED/PV Lanterns) to least developed countries. Its revenue streams: end-users, NGOs and Carbon Credit Schemes have already expressed interest in our low-cost, locally manufactured, zero-carbon design. The team aims to partner with established lighting manufactures to allow consumers to donate hours of light to children in developing countries.

Bloomnest – Globally, a large proportion of parents face financial and time challenges when raising their children. The team’s vision is to develop Bloomnest, to enable parents to connect and expand their support groups, allowing for activity and experience sharing whilst facilitating cost and time saving measures. If successful, Bloomnest will reduce significant debt levels among parents and the productivity gains will benefit the wider community both directly, through increased leisure time and reduced stress, and indirectly, through enabling parents to rejoin the workforce.

ReliaWind – Reliability is vital in the growth of the wind industry, especially offshore, and to realise EU’s targets for 2020. ReliaWind has developed a novel and patent-pending condition-monitoring system for wind turbine drivetrains, enabling 40 per cent reduced maintenance cost for offshore installations. The product, comprising a number of sensors and the analysis hardware/software, offers straightforward retrofit into new wind tur-bines as well as existing ones. This is a relatively new market and the team expects to take a 5.5 per cent market share by 2017, equivalent to installation onto 2500 turbines per year, generating revenues of £60m.

esattotech – Life is full of memories and with devices such as DSLR cameras increasing in video capability, the team believes it has the ability to capture them in incredible detail. However, unlike memories, when revisited, these videos later turn out to be far from how we remembered it as the videos are unstable and blurred, an unfortunate property that distracts from the memory being captured. esattotech says it has a solution; its 'roc' line of camera stabilisers. Esattotech aims to bring professional style video camera stabilisation to the consumer market in easy to use, uniquely engineered high quality products.

Charlie Kappa, Re-Re.com – Re-Re.com provides Life Science researchers with a platform to share opinions about reagents used in their research. This aims to address the discrepancies that exist in the pricing of routine reagents (i.e. antibodies). Initial due-diligence shows that no reliable internet source of user reviews exists. This makes it difficult for researchers to accurately judge when a higher price is justified. Re-Re.com is designed to tap into research culture, by offering a platform where academics share their status, connect, and focus on a mutual interest. Re-re believes it can deliver rapid growth in the site’s user base leading to monetisation in under three years.

GreenTUTOR – GreenTUTOR provides a platform for online training. It focuses on the sustainable built environment. Market research indicates rapid growth of the £9bn global e-learning market of which its target segment –e-learning teaching – showed the highest growth. GreenTUTOR has access to over 350 researchers and professionals in the area of sustainable development through an established network (www.greenbridge.org.uk), which will be its starting point to enter this market. Thanks to easy access to Ivy League Tutors, GreenTUROR says it benefits from low barriers to entry. Its proposed tuition service, flexible, virtual, one-to-one and multilingual, enables global outreach and thus high-growth rates for this venture.

LambentWorks – Increasingly, we are being told about the costs and benefits of food choices. Consumer surveys also indicate that shoppers are taking heed, wanting to know more about the global consequences of their consumer decisions. There are a number of mobile shopping aids and recommender systems available but none can be easily used for a weekly shop at a local supermarket. LambentWorks has developed a minimal, mobile and fully functional lambent display that clips onto any shopping trolley handle, intended to nudge people when choosing what to buy. It makes invisible information more visible and can promote ethical shopping.

Shuruat Mobility – Shuruat is working in the field of product, service and delivery model design and innovation to target large, under-served segments at the bottom of the pyramid. Its first initiative, Shuruat Mobility, is focused on the design, development and marketing of an ecosystem of innovative assistive mobility devices, specialised educational programmes and micro-financing services for the physically disabled across rural India, Africa and the Middle-East, with the objective of delivering income generation opportunities and financial independence to them in a sustainable and scalable manner.

OreCell  – Due to their dwindling resources and their adverse effects on the climate, fossil fuels need to be replaced by alternative energy resources. Solar radiation is the most abundant alternative energy resource available and is environmentally friendly. Solar cells harvest and convert radiation into electricity, but they are expensive to manufacture. Consequently, no commercial solar cell is currently capable of generating electricity cheaper than fossil fuels. OreCell has invented a patent-pending solar cell that can generate electricity cheaper than fossil fuels. They are manufactured from abundant, environmentally friendly materials by using the industry-standard equipment. They can be on the market straightaway.

 • PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: The CUE team