They are part of a group of 40 of the UK’s most visionary female entrepreneurs to drive forward their novel innovations and business ideas to help the UK build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic and meet its climate change ambitions.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway announced the winners. Each will receive a cash injection of £50,000 to scale up and bring to market their disruptive business ideas, many of which have been borne out in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The entrepreneurs being backed from Cambridge are:
Nicola Filzmose, who has developed the Happyr Health app. Having suffered with migraines from an early age, she designed the app for children and young people. It uses storytelling and gamification tools to help them to manage chronic pain.
Sasha Haco, who is developing a tool to identify harmful or abusive online content through her business Unitary. Her work uses computer vision technology to identify harmful content, in context, instead of relying on vast numbers of human moderators and could dramatically increase the identification and removal of such content online.
Dilrini De Silva, who is hoping to improve treatment options for ethnic minority populations, currently underrepresented in medicine development. Her company, Jāna Biois, a pre-seed, biotech start-up, uses AI and state-of-the-art stem cell engineering techniques.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: “As we build back better from Covid, it’s a priority of mine to continue equipping our brightest female innovators with the tools they need to succeed, while encouraging a new generation of women to come forward and pursue their ambitions.
“Today we are supporting three of Cambridge’s most trailblazing female entrepreneurs, helping them to turn their innovative ideas into a reality – from an app helping children with chronic pain to AI that will improve medical treatments for ethnic minority populations. These products and services will help improve our lives and boost our economy.”
Commenting on her award and project, winner Nicola Filzmoser (pictured) said: “We are excited that, together with the Women in Innovation Award, we can bring our story to life to engage children with chronic pain in their disease management. Most importantly, I am excited to share this journey with fellow female entrepreneurs and be a voice for all those young people who need our support.”
The funding is part of the government’s flagship Women in Innovation Awards, delivered by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which seeks to boost the number of UK female entrepreneurs, which could deliver £180 billion to the economy.
It forms a key part of the government’s ambitious R&D Roadmap, published in July 2020, which committed to supporting the UK’s innovators and risk-takers by backing entrepreneurs and start-ups with the funding needed to scale up their innovations.
Emily Nott, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Innovate UK said: “With 2020 proving to be an incredibly difficult year for everyone, and particularly women, continuing to support female entrepreneurs in 2021 has been a real priority for Innovate UK. We have had an enormous response and we can see some positives from the pandemic, with some of our shortlist inspired to start up a business in response to some of the challenges it has brought.
"Working alongside the winners, Innovate UK will help them grow further. We can’t wait to see what else these inspiring women achieve and how they can be an example to inspire the next generation and to encourage more women-led businesses in this country as we rebuild and recover.”
Details on all 40 female inventors can found here. If you’re an inspiring female entrepreneur with pioneering inventions, see how Innovate UK could support you here.