Finalist

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program of the Year Award

Eli Harari Award programme

Finalist of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program of the Year Award

The University of Manchester - United Kingdom

"Entrepreneurship 2D – innovating through the properties and potential of graphene"


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(Commercialising The University of Manchester’s innovations and IP to create positive global, social, and economic impact )

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Summary

The Eli Harari Award empowers students, postdoctoral researchers, and graduates at The University of Manchester to establish new companies involving graphene and 2D materials. Significant prizes are awarded to individuals or teams who can best demonstrate how their technology relating to graphene could be applied to a viable commercial opportunity. Applications are judged on the strength of their business plan to develop a new graphene-related business.

The award seed funding allows the candidate to take the first steps towards realising their plan. It recognises the role that flexible early-stage financial and business support plays in the successful development of a business targeting the full commercialisation of a product or technology related to research. An additional prize is given for the best sustainable development idea aligned with the UN SDG’s.

Over nine years it has evolved to bring together the synergies of the university entrepreneurship education and technology transfer offices, graphene experts, senior alumni, the city region, Nobel researchers, students, and graduates as well as government, UK and EU and private funding sources, angel and VC and intellectual property lawyers.

This unique synergy of entrepreneurial education, peer led hackathons and information sessions led across a range of partner inputs promoting competition visibility provides an accelerated pathway delivered by experts to synthesise the opportunity and talent. Access to significant awards and wraparound support for a year after winning including links to private and public sector funds and state of the art co-creation facilities and global exposure is usually beyond a start-up’s capability.

Key People


Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Andre Geim
Regius Professor and Royal Society Research Professor
School of Physics and Astronomy,  The University of Manchester



Dr. Eli Harari
Founder of SanDisk and co-inventor of flash memory storage
Physics Alumnus,  The University of Manchester



Professor Luke Georghiou
Deputy President & Deputy VC
The University of Manchester



Lynn Sheppard
Director
Masood Entrepreneurship Centre,  Alliance Manchester Business School



Tony Walker
Deputy Director
Masood Entrepreneurship Centre,  Alliance Manchester Business School



Dr Martin Henery
Lecturer in Enterprise
Masood Entrepreneurship Centre,  Alliance Manchester Business School



James Baker
Chief Executive Officer
Graphene@Manchester



Ray Gibbs
Director of Commercialisation
Graphene@Manchester


Acknowledgements

- The North American Foundation for The University of Manchester through the support of Dr. Eli.
Harari and his wife, Britt.
- Masdar, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company.
- Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
- The European Regional Development Fund.
- The research and professional services staff and students at The University of Manchester.

Images

IMPACT STORY

Impacting lifes

Female founder Dr Beenish Siddique had just graduated with a PhD when she entered the Eli Harari Awards. Her technology aims to provide eco-friendly hydrogels to farmers that, not only increase crop production but the potential to grow crops in infertile and water stressed lands, with minimum use of water and fertilisers. Beenish’s pitch was based on personal experience “Many farmers, especially in third world countries with warmer climates, will benefit from my solution that offers higher crop yield with less water and fertiliser usage, less greenhouse gases emission and a much cleaner environment.”

Through the Eli Harari Award support Beenish won the Sustainable FoodTech section of the 2022 CogX awards. They saw her pioneering technology will reduce the use of fresh water in agriculture and enable nations like the UK to grow a wider range of indigenous foods reducing “food miles” – while enabling better yields for farmers in developing nations, where poor quality soils and limited rainfall put pressure on water supply and productivity.

Her business AEH recently secured a funding agreement worth £3.5million with Canada-based biotech investor Terra Sana to develop its vertical farming system. Beenish said “the new funding was welcome as it will accelerate already established sales opportunities for its GelPonic systems on a global basis. Equity investment in women-led start-ups has been very poor previously and it is very encouraging that Terra Sana have invested in me and the company I established. I am thankful for their faith in our product and the shared vision.”

LEARNINGS

Lessons learned

Over the last nine years we have seen an unexpected breadth and depth of ideas, from water filtration, intelligent mattresses, vertical farming to space hotels. Coupled with a host of global students suggesting ideas with enormous potential and promise. What has been surprising is the support structures that have come forwards to support these ideas. Graphene suppliers providing materials, patent attorneys giving free time, global design businesses providing support and funders helping scale these opportunities.

Our advice would be to not set limits to the potential of students and graduates, but to develop structures that allow them to grow in their technical, commercial and entrepreneurship abilities. Being patient is critically important as many ideas must be managed alongside academic study and the needs and demands of research positions. Having an open mind to outcomes is also important as the initial concepts will change over time and it is important to help young entrepreneurs through these challenges, the results have often been amazing in their growth and the final outcomes of the business plan. Honesty is a key ingredient in awards such as these, and it’s important to show failure and setback is part of the journey, and self-doubt is permissible. We have been surprised how resilient applicants have been when they return the next year with a new application. Being open ourselves to new ideas and inputs has been key, the additional value brought through the student run Graphene Hackathon gave a great boost to the visibility of the awards.

FUTURE PLANS

What's coming?

The Eli Harari Award recognises the role that high-level, flexible, early-stage financial support can play in the successful development of a business in graphene and 2D materials. We will continue our commitment to the support of entrepreneurship across the University as a vital part of our approach to the commercialisation of research. Our aim is to continue to grow the quality of the business proposals presented in each year’s finals.

We aim to expand the support provided to enable new and exciting ventures to be developed to support the very best from our students in terms of inventiveness and entrepreneurial flair being applied to ambitious goals. This will include new award categories, encouraging more diversity and inclusion among entrants, pushing the boundaries of the potential of graphene in areas like space exploration and addressing challenges in the net zero environment. As well we aim to encourage more inter and multi-disciplinary teams including more social science and humanities students within teams.

Collaborating with our civic partners we want to replicate this success for our new ID Manchester project in development of a world-class innovation ecosystem around the University, creating unrivalled scale and opportunity, and opening new partnerships with the firms who come here to employ stellar students and to apply transformative ideas to their businesses. The future of Eli Harari Awards is to attract the most forward-thinking, like-minded individuals and businesses to work with our student entrepreneurs, to start up or scale up their companies.


KEY STATISTICS

>100

Competition entries from students and graduates to the Eli Harari Awards

>300

Number of young researchers engaged in spinoff events such as the Graphene Hackathon

16

New ventures created through the Eli Harari Awards

£750k

Amounts of prizes awarded to create new ventures

>£10m

Funding raised by the new ventures created

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