Imperial Innovators of the year competition launches

Staff and students invited to turn their ideas into inventions - News

Monday 17 March 2008
By Naomi Weston

Aspiring inventors can win up to £1,000 for their bright idea in the new Imperial Innovators of the Year Competition, launched last Friday by Imperial Innovations, the College’s technology transfer and commercialisation company.

Held for the first time this year, the competition recognises the innovative ideas of staff and students in two categories: Academic Innovator Award and Young Innovator Award.

An introductory workshop was held to officially launch the competition and presentations were given on turning ideas into inventions, protecting your idea and the benefits of commercialisation.

The competition recognises the innovative ideas of staff and students

Professor Nigel Brandon, who was named one of the top science entrepreneurs in the UK and who floated his fuel-cell company on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 2004, gave a talk on his experiences. Technology experts from Imperial Innovations were also on hand at the event to discuss ideas with staff and students.

Individual academics, graduates and students of Imperial or teams of people can enter the competition by describing their idea which should have evolved from their research and should also have significant commercial value.

Brian Graves, Head of the Engineering and Technology Transfer Team at Imperial Innovations, said: “Most inventions we receive come from new people which may be surprising. It is very important to raise awareness of what we do and meet more potential inventors from the College.”

He added, “We have made the competition very simple, all you need to do is come up with the idea, write it down and email it in.”

All entries need to demonstrate that the idea fulfils an unmet need or provides a significant improvement over an existing product.

All the ideas sent in will be treated as confidential and the competition is open from now until the 1 May 2008. The winners will be announced in June.

Entries should be sent to competition@imperial.ac.uk

For more information please visit Imperial Innovations