Twelve hopeful Darwinian entrepreneurs pitched their ideas yesterday, in the second annual Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Darwin College Entrepreneurship Society.
Organised by Darwin PhD student in Economics Fergus McCormack, the event provides students with the opportunity to bid for funding from a panel of business leaders.
The competition is funded through the generosity of Dr Ewan Kirk, tech entrepreneur and founder of Cantab Capital Partners. Ewan was joined on the panel by biotech business consultant Miranda Weston-Smith; Darwin alumnus and founder of technology development company Elucidare Dr David Nugent; co-founder of Salonica Omar Majid; and alumnus and CEO of Cambridge Innovation Solutions Dr Alex Smeets.
Following a full day of pitches in the Bradfield Room, the panel awarded:
- £2,500 to LexTech, which proposes to streamline legal client onboarding through AI-powered questionnaires, automating data collection and validation and reducing the administrative workload for law firms.
Henry Weigt, Noah Campana and Felix Hadasch
- £1,500 to Airies Diagnostics, which aims to address the decline in global fertility by monitoring hormonal health through at-home testing of the oral microbiome.
Eleonore Ocaña
- The pitch prize of £1000 was awarded to MyClimpact, an app to calculate individual carbon footprints, providing personalised recommendations to reduce climate impact.
Laurie Hill, Mitali Waghmare, Anna Winter
The panel and participants ended the day with dinner in the Old Library.
