A product developer, a patent agent, an investor, a start-up advisor and an entrepreneur €“ all leading Scottish business figures €“ make up the expert judging panel for the Heriot-Watt business plan competition.
Former president of ElectroMagnetic, Leon Walker; Jim Hall, CEO of Wideblue and Alistair Minty, MD of Frontier IP Group will assess the finalists in the "pitch your idea to a an expert panel" event part of the final stage of the University's first ever Scotland-wide business plan competition, known as The Converge Challenge.
Also included in the expert business line up are: Dr Maureen Kinsler, patent attorney with Marks & Clerk, and Dr Wendy Hanson of Scottish Enterprise. Dr Olga Kozlova, enterprise creation manager at Heriot-Watt will facilitate the event.
Dr Wendy Handson who has a long standing relationship with Heriot-Watt and is looking forward to the judging experience, said: "I have seen some really innovative projects emerge from Heriot-Watt and competitions such as this really showcase the ethos of entrepreneurship that is ever present at the university."
Converge Challenge 2010 is an enterprise initiative of the Converge project, which aims to encourage academic and industry engagement and to enhance the development of researchers' skills, competencies and connections in knowledge transfer innovation.
The "pitch you idea to an expert panel" event will take place on Tuesday 28 September where the judges will be asked to assess finalists' based on the quality of their research to establish a need for the business, the business idea and finally the individual's enthusiasm and drive to succeed.