Women Challengers In National Competition

Women’s Enterprise Scotland have recently reported on the encouraging rise in female applications in the 2012 Converge Challenge.

Entrepreneurial Spirit Winner, Christine Watson, with Kim Winser OBE, Heriot-Watt Principal, Steve Chapman, and Olga Kozlova.

“The outcomes of a Scotland-wide business competition, Converge Challenge run by Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh has revealed that more and more entrepreneurial talent amongst women is being recognised.

Three years after its launch women now represent 30% of those who apply and those who are selected for the Converge Challenge final.”
Click here to continue reading on the WES webpage.

A Practical Guide to Business Start-up – Finance for Beginners with Jeff Meek

Streamed live on the 13th July 2012, and in front of a live audience, Jeff Meek, Partner and Head of Forensic Accounting at French Duncan LLP, talked about the financial aspects of starting-up your own business.

Jeff Meek

Between March and September, Heriot-Watt University runs seminars for anyone thinking about starting-up their own business. These are available to attend in person at our Edinburgh campus, or to watch live online.

The seminars support Converge Challenge, a Scotland-wide competition to seek out and develop the best new entrepreneurs in our universities and research institutes. For more information, please click here.

Find out about upcoming seminars at www.hw.ac.uk/liveseminars

Converge Challenge’s Dr Olga Kozlova Shortlisted for Interface Excellence Awards

Dr Olga Kozlova, the driving force of Converge Challenge, has been nominated for the Interface Excellence awards, which recognise the success and achievement resulting from collaborative partnerships between business and academia.

Dr Olga Kozlova

Dr Kozlova represents Heriot-Watt in the category of “Interface Outstanding Contribution to Knowledge Exchange Award”, which recognises an individual in academia, business or business support organisation who has made a significant contribution and played a pivotal role in the promotion of knowledge exchange within Scotland.

Speaking of the nomination, Dr Kozlova said:

“I feel honoured to be nominated in this award category. Converge Challenge helps to identify and develop potential entrepreneurs in Scotland’s universities and research institutes – this nomination can only help to raise its profile so we can continue to develop the business skills of our research scientists in the country.”

The final will be held on the 5th December 2012.

To find out more about Converge Challenge, you can visit our website or watch the 2012 promotional video below.

Applications for the 2013 Converge Challenge will be accepted from March 2013. Keep visiting our blog for further updates.

Funding Your Business – Beg, Borrow & Sell? With Shahida Imani

Shahida has spent more than 10 years in the Scottish technology arena. A CIMA qualified accountant, her recent engagements have encompassed the technology, software and renewable energy industries predominantly for emerging venture capital backed companies.

She has led the financial management of businesses working closely with the executive management team in some of the most successful Scottish Technology Companies such as Optos plc, Voxar Limited and most recently Rocela Ltd.

She has extensive experience of the financial, operational and commercial requirements within a business and supporting major strategic initiatives such as acquisitions, takeovers, securing equity or grant funding and global expansion (including Far East Asia and USA), but also ensuring that robust scalable financial systems and processes are in place to support rapidly growing businesses.

In our latest video seminar, Shahida talks about how to fund your start-up business, and contains nuggets of information every would-be entrepreneur needs to know before the go our looking for funding.

Investor Presentations – a guide by John March, CEO of BigDNA Ltd

Continuing our informative online seminar series is John March, CEO of BigDNA Ltd.

John’s research at the Moredun Research Institute was spun out into a fully developed company.

In this seminar, he talks about his experiences and how to find funding and raise money for your enterprise.

 

 

 

A Practical Guide to Business Start up – online seminars now available

Throughout the “Converge Challenge Season”, of March – September, we organise business start-up seminars, aimed at people who have never started up their own business before.

“An excellent seminar”

“Frank and pragmatic advice on starting up a business”

“Students should be forced to come to these!“

The seminars are taken by experienced professionals, who have either started up their own business, or work closely with start-ups and can offer advice on the do’s and dont’s of doing so.

We’ll be releasing a range of videos over the coming days, so stay tuned for updates.

From today, you can watch Dr Olga Kozlova, our Enterprise Creation Manager at Heriot-Watt University discussing the reasons of why anybody would want to start a business – and her own experiences of doing so. A must-see for anyone planning or thinking about taking the next step in their career and going it alone.

And if you missed it, we already have one of our speakers from April available online – Mark Zwinderman of Surface Active Solutions on Learning Your Market. Another great watch.

 

 

Converge Challlenge Awards Dinner

Just a short post today – the cold Edinburgh air is affecting my ability to tpye.

The Converge Challenge awards dinner was a success. We loved it, our guests loved it, and I think our winners particularly loved it!

There are some pics of the evening on Flickr. Have a look and see why this is such a premier entrepreneurial competition in Scotland.

Converge Challenge on Flickr

 

Principal’s Public Engagement Prize

The Public Engagement prize, which is given out annually at Heriot-Watt University, has come to represent the importance of engaging the public with the science and research we undertake here on a daily basis.

Whether it is introducing science to a new generation, or opening up the wonders of nature to a general audience, our public engagement continues to be inspirational and educational to our audiences.

Announced at the Converge Challenge awards dinner in 2012, our three prizewinners were:

Dr Bill MacPherson – Overall winner.

Dr Laura Wicks – Early Career Researcher Category Winner

International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS) – Group Category Winner

Chromacity

Taking third place at the 2012 Converge Challenge Awards was Chromacity, based on technology and research from a Heriot-Watt University team.

Lead applicant Derryck Reid along with Chromacity co-founder Christopher LeBurn propose to bring to market an innovative laser that will tune smoothly throughout the visible region from 400 – 700 nm.

The primary market is biological imaging – specifically cell biology, genetic analysis and molecular biology – in which laser-excited fluorescent dyes are used as reporters of the conditions inside cells.

Find out more about their proposals in this video:

 

Converge Challenge – Dynamic Bioarray

Second place winner in the 2012 Converge Challenge was Dynamic Bioarray, a business plan by Dr Ekaterina McKenna, from the University of Glasgow.

She plans to create a new bio-nanotechnology company based in Scotland that will provide products, IP, consultancy and services for the world-wide micro- and nano-array technology market.

Watch the video below for an explanation in her own words.