This year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Awards celebrate our colleagues’ exceptional contributions in the areas of collegiality, quality, internationalisation and sustainability. This short series of articles will share what makes the teams and individual winners special.
Team award – Future Worlds Team in the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering.
The award, which highlights the platform as an ambassador of the University’s key principle of Quality, comes just 10 months after Future Worlds was launched by Principal Enterprise Fellow Dr Reuben Wilcock.
Future Worlds is helping turn staff and students’ commercial opportunities into market-ready solutions for a range of industries by providing exclusive access to events, support, and mentors with a global network of contacts on Futureworlds.com.
Mentors on the scheme include Chris Broad, Director of Apple Europe; Geoff Baker, Vice President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; and Penny Endersby, a Head of Division at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.
Director Dr Wilcock said:
“It’s a great honour for the team to be recognised so soon in our journey as we help our aspiring entrepreneurs change the world with their ideas. Our growing team strives for quality in all we do and it’s fantastic for this to be recognised through the Vice-Chancellor’s award.
“Since launching 10 months ago Future Worlds has helped over 35 entrepreneurs, start-ups and spinouts, some of whom have been accepted into London’s top accelerator programmes, have gone on to raise over £1.3 million in funding and are now creating new jobs in the UK.”
The start-up incubator is now an associate member of Innovate UK’s Digital Catapult Centre, and has been credited in an article on Forbes.com as helping change the picture of entrepreneurship in UK universities.
Quality is one of the four underlying principles central to the success of our strategy and will underpin our strategic activities. Quality: always striving to achieve the highest quality in everything we do.
Read about the other 2016 Vice Chancellor’s Award winners:
Dr. Nicola Englyst: Associate Professor, Programme Leader for MSc Diabetes Best Practice, Lead for Mentoring Scheme
Ardel Richardson: Faculty based Accountant at the Winchester School of Art
The LifeLab Team: A unique educational project for secondary school pupils