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International Women's Day was the chosen day for the announcement of the AccelerateHER 2018: GROWTH Awards.
Two of the six deserving winners work closely with Heriot-Watt; Dr Monika Tomecka's spin-out Ufraction8; and Dr Ifeyinwa Kanu's start-up, IntelliDigest.
The Awards led by Investing Women, Scotland's all-female business angel group, were open to all growth-potential, entrepreneurial women-led businesses in Scotland.
The Award ceremony followed the Investing Women conference which featured keynote speaker, our own Professor Heather McGregor, Dean of Edinburgh Business School, and Jenny Campbell, one of the UK's leading businesswomen and dragon on BBC's Dragons' Den.
The winners will access a top level week in California or an exciting new mission programme in Dubai; to benefit from access to wide international market opportunities, connecting directly with potential financiers and industry leaders.
This is a great achievement for Dr Tomecka and Dr Kanu, many congratulations to them. They have excellent businesses with high growth potential
Ufraction8, co-founded by Dr Tomecka and Dr Brian Millar, makes scalable filtration systems for the bio-technology sector and impressed the judges by “creating a disruptive product which addresses problems in a better way than current systems on the market”. The company also won the first Horizon 2020 Pilot Project Competition in 2017, the Scottish Edge HIGGs prize 2017 and the inaugural Murgitroyd Innovator Launchpad competition 2017.
Dr Kanu's IntelliDigest is manufacturing a new anaerobic food waste digestion system and was praised by the judges for tackling an environmental need. The start-up has reached the Converge Challenge finals, Climate KIC Accelerator 1&2, Pitch@Palace8 and IET Innovation Awards.
Robert Goodfellow, Head of the Business and Enterprise team said: “This is a great achievement for Dr Tomecka and Dr Kanu, many congratulations to them. They have excellent businesses with high growth potential. Heriot-Watt is proud of their success and the support given throughout their enterprise journey including training and mentorship, IP advice and within Converge Challenge. We have no doubts they will go from strength to strength.”
Read more about IntelliDigest in an interview with Dr Kanu by BQ magazine.