We are delighted to announce the ninth year of awards under the College’s annual entrepreneurship competition, intended to encourage King’s members (past and present) to develop their entrepreneurial ideas and convert their creativity and knowhow for sustainable commercial and social benefit.
This year’s top prize, with a value of £20,000, has been awarded to Flare, a £10,000 second prize goes to EduVantage, and CellaNexa receives the third prize of £5,000.
Founded by recent graduates Gabriel Brown (KC 2020, Theology), Morgan Saville (KC 2020, Computer Science) and Geno Racklin Asher (KC 2020, Mathematics), Flare builds custom safety apps that help universities, colleges and schools safeguard students and promote a positive brand image. By selecting from their menu of pre-built feature modules, clients can order a safety app that is tailored to their unique needs. While all the maintenance and technical details are handled by Flare, institutions can enjoy full ownership and control over their app. The service is scalable and cost-effective.
Flare’s initial market is the secondary and higher education sector in the UK, but there are also significant growth opportunities in construction and the public sector, as well as in many businesses that employ lone workers.
Presented by Sonia Ramanah (KC 1995, Social and Political Sciences), EduVantage is a School Information Management System (SIMS) suite designed to streamline, unify and simplify administrative and educational processes, with features and functionalities that meet the diverse needs of students, teachers, administrators and parents. As an off-the-shelf, accessible, cost-effective, agile and user-friendly SIMS, EduVantage is uniquely positioned for UK small schools who require flexibility in timetabling and student admissions and progressions as well as Less Developed Countries with limited digital resources, connectivity and skills. The software was originally developed by a London school as an innovative solution to meet its requirements to track, assess, manage and monitor the diverse needs of the vulnerable students on its roll, after a scan of the existing SIMS marketplace identified a gap in the market.
CellaNexa is a business idea led by Wennan Sun (KC 2022, Economics) which hopes to revolutionize drug delivery. Its AI-powered protein engineering platform is designed to harness the unique properties of self-assembling proteins from long terminal repeats (LTR) retrotransposons. The platform expertly identifies these proteins and refines them through advanced machine learning-driven design techniques. It develops protein nanoparticles that excel in targeting ability, payload capacity, immune evasion, and manufacturability, specifically focusing on targeted delivery to brain and cancer tissues.
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The Entrepreneurship Prize competition was established in 2014 with a gift from Stuart Lyons CBE (KC 1962) and culminates each year in the ‘Lyons Den’, where finalists present their full business plans to an expert panel.
If you would like to find out more about the King's Entrepreneurship Prize and how to enter the competition, please email: enterprise@kings.cam.ac.uk
Read about past winners of the Entrepreneurship Prize here.
