As part of its biggest-ever campaign in support of student innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, Imperial College London’s ThinkSpace is hosting the Create Lab Venture Catalyst Challenge (VCC) across the academic year. Its latest clean energy-themed ‘Invent the Future’ make-a-thon welcomed young entrepreneurial-minded students for a day of inspiration, talks and collaboration, designed to create strong business ideas to solve renewable energy issues.
Hot off the heels of November 13th’s health themed ‘Invent the Future’ make-a-thon, a fresh group of Imperial College entrepreneurs gathered their thoughts at ThinkSpace. Last year we saw overall winners raise over £1.25 million in investment, and this year’s extraordinary talent pool promises no less!
As part of the Imperial Create Lab ‘Invent the Future’ make-a-thon workshop and university-wide pre-accelerator challenge, teams developed ideas from seed to prototype in a single afternoon. The make-a-thon culminated in a competitive pitching session to select the best ideas. The winning teams included:
- “Green Data” – Uses big data analytics to calculate the carbon footprint of products purchased online and suggests ways it could be offset through personal actions
- Jeffrey Sinick, Keeren Flora and Martin Knutli?- https://on.fb.me/1baFh1P
- “The Design Engineering Group” invented a device that breaks down plastic, allowing it to be recycled into 3D printing material, thus completing the reuse cycle at home?
- Weston Baxter and Marcel Admiraal?- https://on.fb.me/19db8LX
Laurence Kemball-Cook, CEO of Pavegen Systems, kicked off the event with tales of his own entrepreneurial journey, noting, “Starting a business can be like crawling on your hands and knees through glass in the dark, and while I mean that somewhat in jest, it is more akin to jumping off a cliff and learning to swim on the way down.” Kemball-Cook recently went on a state visit to China with David Cameron with the aim to boost UK’s clean tech products alongside his own ground-breaking clean-technology company which generates electricity from the kinetic energy of footsteps.
The ‘Invent The Future’ series challenges innovators, scientists, academics, and students to engage in a series of make-a-thons and generate game-changing ideas, with the aim of producing viable solutions for global issues. The series features a who’s who of leading experts and thought leaders to provide rich and diverse perspective, debate and discussions across: health, resources and life-work-play in the future.??The Imperial Create Lab VCC infuses the expertise and inspiration of successful entrepreneurs with the next generation of innovators. Accelerators such as ThinkSpace provide confidence, critical thinking and collaboration these young entrepreneurs need to literally invent the future solutions of tomorrow, and demonstrate the institution’s support of UK innovators and entrepreneurs
