Hope, Creativity, Tenacity, Resilience, Flexibility, Empathy, Determination & Motivation-Simply Entrepreneurial Spirit of Scottish Business Founders!

Being involved in judging the finals of two top business entrepreneurial startup awards competition from Scottish Calendar, in the last month, whilst we are still very much in the middle of pandemic, showed that yes whilst-

1.   We are still in the middle of biggest crisis of our lifetime

2.   Jobs are being lost

3.   Businesses are losing revenue, customers and sales &

4.   People all around us are naturally anxious for health and wellbeing of their loved ones

......Entrepreneurial mindset of Scotland's business startup founders is not wasting an opportunity. Entrepreneurs are providing us with the biggest boom options. It is a fact that early-stage, high-growth startup businesses will play a vital role in rebuilding our economy and driving employment opportunities. For Scotland to rebuild and recover in the aftermath of COVID-19 crisis - SMEs are fundamental to success. To make that happen: enterprise businesses, public sector, Corporates/industry, academia and government must come together with citizens to extend and accelerate support for them.

Besides the fact that, many of this year’s finalists companies at Scottish EDGE (UK’s biggest funding competition for early stage and high growth companies) & Converge Challenge (Scotland’s largest company creation programme for academic entrepreneurs with Scottish Universities/Higher Education Institutions) competitions are on a mission to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges - around health, including Covid-19 itself, climate, green energy, agriculture, cybersecurity and robotics with application of data and digital- If there was one common thread strongly evident, amongst the finalists, it was the core values & attributes of a true ‘#entrepreneur’ exhibited by dictionary definition of their:

1.Tenacity- “Driven by their determination to achieve a goal, unwilling to give up until they do”

2. Resilience- “Their capacity to respond to pressure and the demands of daily life. In short, resiliency affecting their ability to 'bounce back”

3. Flexibility- “Being able and willing to adapt to changing circumstances when it comes to how work gets done”

4. Empathy- “The ability to perceive and relate to the thoughts, emotions, or experience of others”. And all finalists worked towards developing creative #solutions to key customer problems and pain points.

This year, Scottish EDGE received a record-breaking 327 applications. At the live Finals event we saw 23 businesses pitching #digitally to a panel of Eight judges over two-days. It was a pleasure to see the quality of innovation, potential of business growth and skill set of founders and uniqueness of business ideas. Absolute fun to be in the company of superb #Fellow #judges! ?? Simon Hannah, Brian williamson, Chris van der Kuyl, Gillian Docherty OBE, Poonam Gupta OBE, Freda Newton & Darina Garland (Photo Credit: Scottish EDGE Team; Jack Proctor)…… listening to hugely #Innovative #Companies #pitching. what a range of #sectors & variety! Fantastic time with #Founders being quizzed over the two days about their business growth potential & defensibility.

At the first ever digital live @ScottishEDGE awards from virtual Finals- 33 entrepreneurs shared ￡1.08m Scottish Edge funding pot. Massive well done to @TouchlabL for winning #HIGGS prize at ScottishEDGE #EDGE16Awards. Top #HIGGS EDGE prize received by #ZakareyaHussein of TouchLab (￡100K). Touchlab uses electronic skin that gives machines a human sense of touch to build a teleoperated robot avatar. This allows them to better operate when handling delicate objects in difficult surroundings such as outer space or hazardous environments. With applications in nuclear decommissioning, healthcare infection control and extremely high temperature or extreme-pressure situations, the #technology has huge potential. Quite fitting for @TouchlabL to win the Higgs EDGE Award being a Higgs Centre for Innovation based business!

Some brilliant results in #EDGE16Awards - loved seeing all the virtual reactions! We know that technology (Biotech, Medtech, Life Sciences & Clean & Green tech with digital and data-driven solutions) and bioindustry will have an essential role to play in the rebuilding and reshaping of our economy if we are to create a more sustainable future for all. Particularly great to see some genuinely innovative Scottish technology companies like @ten_bio, @IntelliPalpDx, @CraftProspect, @MiRNA @OriginPeptides, @EarthBlox @Topolytics and @Utopi get an injection of funding along with @BioLiberty, @Crover_Tech & @SolarisKit.

Great news that first ever ‘Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre Award’ was scooped by @ōGI Bio. Well done Alex McVey- also a Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) Enterprise Fellowship Awardee.

@Seawater Solutions, winning Circular Economy EDGE award of ￡25k (by Zero Waste Scotland), seeking sustainable farming practices, which uses seawater to grow salt-tolerant crops was very much in line with providing solutions to bigger climate challenge issues. Well done all the winners and in Scottish EDGE terminology- also all the ‘Not Yets’ – work on the feedback provided and come back again in future years- much stronger.

NEW this year, in response to the challenges faced by businesses in pandemic and their limited ability to raise investment to support their innovation- it was good that Scottish Enterprise stepped up further- with an additional ￡0.5m of loan support enabling bridging the growth for far more businesses. The EDGE winners will be able to access further top-up loans to boost their award. Scottish EDGE is supported by the Hunter Foundation, Royal Bank of Scotland Business, the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise as #partners.

Befittingly, Keynote speakers at the virtual final & awards event included leading UK BioSciences Entrepreneur- Professor Sir Christopher Evans, Marta Krupinska, Head of Google for Startups UK, synthesizer & author of Rose Review on Female Entrepreneurship: status of investment in Wommen founder-led businesses- Alison Rose, CEO NatWest Group, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fiona Hyslop and leading Scottish businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter. #Collaboration Public-Private-Government

Similarly, two weeks earlier, eight fantastic Converge Challenge #finalist Companies dazzled judges with their #investor pitches this year, at the 10th anniversary of Converge. Good time with my Fellow #Judges including serial biotech entrepreneur, Prof Andy Porter, Derek Shaw @scotent, Mary Jane Brouwers & Andrew Noble @ParEquity.

It was a long day filled with excitement, humour, #innovation and market #growth opportunities at Converge #Challenge #Finals. Two-hr deliberation over award winners after a 9-hr long pitches day- you get the picture! Enjoyed the whole time though. All very worthy competitors- The best business prospects at that moment in time won on the day (Photo Credit- Converge Team).

At the Converge Awards night @EarthBlox, analysing the global satellite data to provide better understanding of the impact of deforestation and urban expansion, led by Dr Genevieve Patenaude, a University of Edinburgh spinout, was declared Winner. @TenBio, a next generation skin testing platform, led by Dr Robyn Hickerson & Dr Michael Conneely, a University of Dundee spinout, was awarded Runners up of the Converge Challenge Finals. First time in the history of the Converge Awards for academic innovation and entrepreneurship Three female-led businesses won all the three main categories: the Converge Challenge award, the Impact Challenge prize and the Creative Challenge prize. I even managed to get 'a lovely bottle of bubbly' delivered by posting a picture of the "Best Baffies" (home slippers to most of us) live competition at the awards night. Thank you Converge Team for liking those!

Despite the pandemic, application entries to Converge competition 2020 rose up 17% on 2019. This year’s Converge Awards welcomed guest speakers including Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon; multi-award-winning environmental entrepreneur, Kresse Wesling MBE, co-founder of sustainable British fashion brand, Elvis & Kresse and Professor Andrea Nolan OBE, Principal and Vice Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University. Susan Fouquier, Managing Director, Business Banking, Royal Bank of Scotland also announced the winner of the ‘Rose Award’, a brand-new award presented to an aspiring, ambitious female entrepreneur from this year’s Converge cohort, named after Alison Rose, CEO, The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Thank you & well done to all at the @Scottish EDGE & @ConvergeC Teams for delivering wonderful programme & awards competitions under very tough and challenging backdrop both in health and economic context- for people and businesses of Scotland.

And tonight is the start of another entrepreneurial Investor “Engage Invest & Exploit” #EIE Conference by Informatics Ventures, University of Edinburgh- a hotbed platform for innovative, entrepreneurial ideas looking for investment funding support by glocal Investors and Venture Capital community. Can not wait to see some of the exciting pitch prospects from #EIE 2020 Virtual Conference tomorrow…………another first as #online EIE....

All this activity is a proof positive that the entrepreneurial mindset is well alive and kicking in Scotland & our people are not wasting any opportunity that Covid-19 pandemic crisis has provided. Some big positives coming out are:

1.   Largest ever number of applications received both by Scottish EDGE & Converge

2.   Largest number of female entrepreneur winners

3.   Largest number of female participation on Judges/Review Panels #GenderBalance

Long live the business enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit and mindset. Lets help build a strong ecosystem to support their growth and scaling up……thus leading to an economic recovery in an inclusive equitable manner for all- helping to generate a wellbeing economy on a healthier greener planet for our people.