Students from the CDT Neurotechnology participated in the final of the first Cross-CDT Dragon's Den competition, which took place on 27th July 2017.

The first Cross-CDT Dragon's Den competition was held this year with students from four CDTs competing for a first prize of £5,000.

The aims of the competition (which was based on the Institute of Chemical Biology CDT’s Dragon’s Den) were to support the commercial development of students’ ideas and inventions not related to their research, to develop the students' enterprising knowledge and skills, and encourage cross-CDT collaboration.  The scheme proved a successful model in developing PhD students’ understanding of entrepreneurship and their ability to turn ideas into commercially viable projects.

The programme incorporated an initial ideation session followed by 4 workshops and a final showcase event.  CDT Neurotechnology students Thomas Martineau and Martin Priessner joined teams which successfuly made it to the competition finals with their ideas:

Reductive Systems: Providing automatic solutions to fire safety in commercial HVAC Systems. Team members: Charlie Houseago (HIPEDS), Golo Wimmer (Mathematics of Planet Earth) & Thomas Martineau (Neurotechnolgy)

and

Cocoon: A portable device for pushchairs to reduce child's exposure to air pollution. Team members: Melissa Berthelot (HIPEDS CDT) & Martin Priessner (Neurotechnology CDT)

Team Cocoon pitching at the final

with Reductive systems being awarded the runner-up prize of £1,000.

All teams also received a £500 budget to enable them to protype their ideas.

Our congratulations go to the runners-up and all the teams who participated inthe event.