2004/05

@-LERT

Personal belongings, valuables and other articles of importance are lost on a daily basis, often either through one's own carelessness or through actions of pickpockets. With @-LERT TM, the personal valuable assistant (PVA), one's mind can be set to ease as this device will alert the user whenever an item kept track by the device is beyond one or two metres away from the user, thereby allowing the user to take note of the missing item while it is still physically recoverable.


Members: 
Ivan Zhao

Afterthought

PeerShare is a new approach to legal Internet media distribution using traditional peer-to-peer ideas, but with a twist. We present a model similar in many aspects to existing and forthcoming networks, which provides a user-reward scheme that is both secure and flexible and can operate over a de-centralised network.


Members: 
William Tracz
Members: 
Hywel Carver

Anti-Adblock

A large proportion of internet "content" sites (media, search, webmail, etc) rely on advertising revenue for support. Frequently this advertising is performed via click-through images and links. However, this client-side filtering of such material is becoming increasingly popular - the fastest growing share of the browser market is now "Firefox" (over 23M downloads), for which the second most popular extension is a client-side filter (with over 1M users). Such filtering has been available for several years, but is only now becoming "mass market", and thus having a direct impact on the global US$10Bn/yr internet advertising revenue that allows many content sites to survive.

Anti-AdBlock provides a robust solution to this problem, involving a relatively straightforward modification to web-server software. The most common web-server in the market is Apache, which is open source and allows for production of derivative works.

Anti-AdBlock is seeking funds to obtain a US Software patent to protect intellectual property before licensing modified web-server "know-how" to internet media and advertising companies.


Members: 
Shamus Husheer

AromaFlora

AromaFlora aims to grow the finest quality Fairtrade fragranced roses in Kenya and deliver them to your door here in Europe. AromaFloras strong focus on corporate social responsibility and our use of renewable energy sources and environmentally friendly techniques will help establish the AromaFlora brand and enable the production of Fairtrade approved roses targeted at the 340 million European rose market. Revenues generated from these roses will fund the in-house development of AromaFloras fragrance technology, leading to the generation of our value added roses. AromaFloras Fast Flower Model will further increase profit margins by excising the middle men.


Members: 
Kunal Bid
Members: 
Kuoshen Choong
Members: 
John Goulding

BioBuddies

BioBuddies is a revolutionary new approach to preventing tooth decay using pro-biotics. Despite modern dentistry techniques, millions of people the world over have experienced the pain, and dentistry costs, asociated with tooth decay. Biobuddies mission is to use its technology to make the experience of tooth decay a thing of the past with an innovative new treatment that is highly effective.


Members: 
George Harston
Members: 
James Stewart

BOPPHY Technologies

A fabless semiconductor company, BOPPHY Technologies will design, develop and market innovative digital integrated circuits for broadband communications over the existing electrical infrastructure. Broadband over powerlines (BOP) gives customers high-speed internet access through the existing power grid network and enables utility companies to add data services to their offering. By exploiting state of the art modulation and coding techniques, our implementation of the physical layer (PHY) will ease competition against other broadband services by increasing current data rates of cable and DSL by up to a factor of 10.


Members: 
Stavros Tsiakkouris
Members: 
Inaki Berenguer
Members: 
Michele Palazzi

Buoyo

Swimsuit integrated buoyancy aid.


Members: 
Daniel Sheehan

Cam-Cap

Recent work at the University of Coventry has led to the discovery of a new supercapacitive material capable of storing 10 times more electrical energy than competing materials. Consequently, the patent-protected Cam-Cap supercapacitor is able to combine the large energy storage capacity of batteries with the rapid power delivery capabilities of capacitors to meet new customer needs that cannot be satisfied using other existing energy storage materials. The advantages of the Cam-Cap supercapacitors are particularly apparent in the rapidly expanding high performance energy storage markets associated with environmentally friendly alternatives in the transport and power generation industries.


Members: 
Mark Hughes

Cambfix

Cambfix is a business prospect that provides innovative, high quality medical devices for use in orthopaedic and trauma surgery. Every year there are 1.5 million ankle and wrist fractures, which costs the healthcare industry $3 billion. Over one third of these cases develop a complication during treatment. Cambfixs first generation products have a patentable technology that addresses these complications in their entirety and can thereby save the healthcare industry $800 million in ankle and wrist fractures alone. The product pipeline also includes fixators for other fractured bones, soft tissue corrections, paediatric, veterinary and military use. Our products are non-invasive, offer a superior mode of treatment and will reduce patient morbidity by decreasing complications to less than 1%.


Members: 
Ali Bajwa
Members: 
Linda Pomeroy

Coventry Performance Solutions

Coventry Performance Solutions (CPS) has identified a current market opportunity to undertake performance improvement using advanced control technology in the pulp & paper and batch fermentation industries. In the past seven years advanced control has matured in academia and can now handle the fast, unstable and nonlinear dynamics seen in these industries. The close partnership with the University of Coventry Control Group, who have pioneered many of these advancements, as well as the 35 years industrial experience of their Chief Executive Officer, makes CPS ideally positioned to bring the most recent developments to new process sectors.


Members: 
Colin Jones
Members: 
Eric Kerrigan
Members: 
J. Maciejowski
Members: 
Paul Austin

Comparative Online Grocery Shopping

Creation of a web service that compares a particular shopping list and finds the total cost of the item and delivery using all online grocery stores. This is an effective way for consumers to obtain, in real terms, the best value for money online grocery store.


Members: 
Soren Demin
Members: 
Andreas Lambrianou

Composites Innovations International (c2i)

c2i aims to become a world-leading carbon fibre composites design, engineering and production company. It will enjoy high growth and margins due to its low cost Slovak manufacturing base and low cost production processes yielding 30-50% total cost savings in a $42 billion industry. c2i will design and manufacture its own products, the first being a revolutionary carbon fibre wheelchair. c2i will also pursue subcontracting for the aerospace, automotive, boat and leisure industry. c2is first contract is a revolutionary prefabricated palm tree house aimed at 5 star hotels and wealthy families gardens.


Members: 
Patrick Hessel

ConnectEase

There are 130,000 patients worldwide who undergo peritoneal kidney dialysis using 200 million consumable fluid packs annually. Users under the current system have a 1 in 200 chance of getting a serious infection every year during the connection process. Due to the poor design of current systems, patients experience gatal infections, irritating rashes, general discomfort and difficulty in operating the critical equipment. ConnectEases technology dramatically reduces the rate of infection and training time required, whilst addressing the issues of patient comfort and ergonomics. Expected revenues are 500 million by 2010 and 1.3 billion by 2015.


Members: 
Jude Gomila
Members: 
Julia Gadsden
Members: 
Kaoruko Yamazaki
Members: 
Vincent Simonetti

Dhiraj Sinha

The product is an ultra sensitive MEMS based detector which will detect the presence of explosive and narcotic by receiving and analysing radio signals emitted from an excited sample of explosive or narcotic from a range of 1 to 10 metres. The device is basically an electro-mechanical microantenna which transforms the electrical energy of time varying signals into mechanical energy.


Members: 
Dhiraj Sinha

Direct Energy

Thermophotovoltaics (TPV) is a new technology that promises an environmental friendly way of transforming heat into electic energy using natural gas or biomass. Special interest has been given lately to the great commercial potentials that low power portable TPV generators appear to have. Nevertheless in Europe a gap exists between this new technology and its commercial development. This business plan aims to fill this gap. We intend to provide energy efficienty in locations for people and organisation which are difficult to access or do not have a steady source of energy through an environmentally friendly technology.


Members: 
Alexandros Stav...
Members: 
Kshitij Aditeya...
Members: 
Pritesh Vineshc...

Dust.IN

More than 270 million people worldwide cannot be free to live in dusty environments due to the increasingly common dust mite allergy. Dust.IN is creating a new generation of drugs to inhibit dust mite allergies. The company will develop compounds that act by blocking the sites of dust mite proteins responsible for the life-threatening symptoms caused in humans. This new attitude towards allergy will 'attack' directly the allergic agent before triggering any human body's response. Dust.IN will definitely bring fresh air into dust mite allergy! Is this the end of vacuum cleaners?


Members: 
Henrique Martins
Members: 
Ana C.A. Roque

DVDNow

DVDNOW will enter the US$10bn DVD rental market. This is a mature market, recently revolutionised by www.netflix.com (US$600m revenue) and copycat businesses based on web subscriptions for mail-delivery DVDs. DVDNOW has identified a significant weakness in the Netflix et al. business model, which can be exploited at relatively low cost, using existing technologies coupled in a novel way. This allows a substantial expansion on the Netflix model market size, while further eroding the core of the bricks-and-mortar DVD rental market. In a global market where clone companies are competing simply on cost, DVDNOW confers a considerable competitive advantage.


Members: 
Shamus Husheer
Members: 
Enej Kuscer

EASE4Kids

The product, Slide & Swivel TM , makes use of a novel concept that enables the seat to slide forward slightly and then rotate towards the car door, allowing face-on loading of the child. This significantly reduces the difficulty in placing and strapping a child into a child car seat. It also aids in the installation of the seat. Slide & Swivel TM is a modular component which has initially been designed for an existing child seat. However, it has the potential to be modified to be incorporated across a range of car seat brands.


Members: 
Tanya Thompson
Members: 
Sophie Crehan
Members: 
Nick Friedrich
Members: 
John Persaud

EnvAl

EnvAls novel technology is capable of recycling 100% of the waste obtained from post consumer drink cartons (i.e. Tetra Paks). The process recovers clean aluminium that can be sold to the aluminium industry and generates oils and gases suitable for heat or electricity production. EnvAl will contribute to the sustainable development of society by generating profit and by reducing the amount of materials that are currently being landfilled. EnvAl is seeking the partnership of an early stage investor who will provide financial backing to finish building the first demonstration equipment, and then remain with the company to realise its full potential.


Members: 
Alex Domin
Members: 
Howard Chase
Members: 
Carlos Ludlow-P...

FastFoils

FastFoils will manufacture add-on hydrofoils for personal watercraft, in particular windsurfers. FastFoils will construct the hydrofoils from carbon fibre and they will be sold as add-ons so that customers can attach them to their own windsurfers. These hydrofoils will be easy to fit to the standard windsurfer, simple to use and will add an exhilarating extra dimension to windsurfing.


Members: 
Mark Mellops

Fig Tree

Fig Tree has re-evaluated the value of traditional consulting models when applied to understanding markets in some of the poorer regions of the world (bottom of the pyramid). We offer a new approach better suited to help companies meet the needs of this market, through accessing the unique knowledge pool of NGO's and academics.


Members: 
Nicola Dee
Members: 
Heather Cruickshank

Flexibit Solutions

Flexibit Solutions has created a revolutionary line of home and office furniture using technology first developed for the space industry. Our furniture items fold away to minimal proportions when not in use. However, by using newly developed materials the furniture is incredibly strong and durable when deployed.


Members: 
Hui Yen Chua
Members: 
Neil Hoult

Floating Clinic

Our mission is to establish a fully-funded Floating Clinic to facilitate the provision of basic healthcare services in remote parts of Timor Leste. The Floating Clinic, a medically equipped and staffed boat, will travel around the mainland of Timor Leste and its offshore islands. The project will be undertaken in collaboration with a local healthcare provider, responsible for the day to day operations. An extensive fundraising campaign will be conducted in Australia, Singapore and the UK to raise funds to support the Floating Clinic. It is intended as a demonstration project, with long term viability assessed after 5 years.


Members: 
Linda Pomeroy
Members: 
Eleanor Fung
Members: 
Sangeeta Puran
Members: 
Abena Asante-Poku
Members: 
Nicola Perrin

Genome Ink

Our proprietary technology combines nanotechnology and material science to provide simple, accurate and inexpensive security encryption through surface coating with DNA nano-enriched ink.


Members: 
J. Szeszko

GNI-Comms

Communications software exploiting ideas from Sociology.



GreenPowerGenerators

Reduction in power generation costs will reduce the electricity charge for customers. Two major costs in all power stations are Equipment and Maintenance costs. Higher efficiencies also cheapen electricity charges and benefit environment. Reliability is a very important issue in power stations. Each blackout can cause damage to the tune of billions of pounds. Most blackout caused by the failures of turbine generators. GreenPowerGenerators has developed a novel brushless doubly-fed generator for wind and wave power stations. The novel generator has less manufacturing costs (by down to 10%) and maintenance costs (by down to 60%) and is more efficient (by up to 5%) and more reliable. It operates in a wider range of speeds and introduces higher power quality into the grid (i.e. less harmonic pollution). The market for this technology is largely composed of power plant suppliers. Electrical motor and generator manufacturers are also the target companies. Since the technology is innovative and critical, there is great market potential.


Members: 
Seena Rejal
Members: 
Ehsan Abdi Jalebi
Members: 
Richard McMahon
Members: 
Paul Roberts

Hermes

Hermes will deliver high quality, highly customised, daily, sector specific headline news to the stressed and time-poor car and public transport commuter using dedicated technology and proprietary software.


Members: 
Adam Collier
Members: 
Claudio Marinelli
Members: 
Jean-Jacques Bernard
Members: 
Frank Leipold

Horizon Discovery

Despite recent advances, the pharmaceutical industry is still pursuing expensive, and lengthy, approaches to the discovery of oncology drugs with limited efficacy and safety. This results in treatments which are unpleasant for the patient and susceptible to a reduction in effectiveness (resistance). Using innovative genetic manupulation tools, Horizon Discovery has access to a new technology which will allow itself, and partner pharmaceutical companies, to develop cost-effective medicines that are optimally tailored to specific cancer defects. By taking such a focused, 'personalised medicine', approach, Horizon Discovery will be able to reduce drug development costs and supply better medicines to the patient.


Members: 
Adam Collier
Members: 
Christopher Torrance
Members: 
Robert Howes

IC Medical

IC Medical is a spin off manufacturing company dedicated to the manufacture and distribution of a new device in the ophthalmic instrument market.


Members: 
Geoff Bland

IDLink

IDLink is an engineering start-up founded by Coventry University PhD students intent on commercializing hardware-based wireless security devices. The proof-of-concept product will make computers fully secure from unauthorised access and will be a strong deterrent to theft. The technology will be developed for use in a variety of consumer electronics and licensed to Original Equipment Manufacturers, with projected revenues in 2006 of US$20M. Currently a patent application and a working prototype are being prepared, with licensing activities slated to start in Q3 2005. IDLink: the future of hacker-proof security.


Members: 
Alexander Domin
Members: 
Pierre Far
Members: 
David Heyman

InfoLog

InfoLog offers two products. The first allows easy and free paper publishing and reviewing for less experienced professionals and students. The second allows companies to efficiently build and manage databases of expert knowledge. Both products are based on the idea that the users of a database whould have maximum access, i.e. building, maintaining and querying that database should be an easy and simple process.


Members: 
Jackie Tung
Members: 
Frank Fu
Members: 
Jose Brandao-Neto
Members: 
Adriana Gasparini

InterGenomics Group

The InterGenomics Group seeks to transform modern medicine by incorporating complex genetic information into the care of individual patients. IgG has developed the first practical method to accurately predict and alter the genetic risk of common human diseases based on each person's unique Pattern of Polymorphism. IgG intends to market a series of predictive genetic tests that can not only reveal each person's genetic destiny, but also empower them with the knowledge to change it. The ability to predict and alter genetic risk will fundamentally transorm clinical medicine by introducing personalised disease prevention using predictive genetic tests.


Members: 
Brian A. Ference
Members: 
Frank Landsberger

LAMA

With US$33.2 billion spent on R&D in 2003 by U.S. drug companies alone, the number of drugs reaching the market is strikingly small. This is not surprising, since current 'out-of-the-box' target identification techniques make verification prohibitively long and costly. LAMA is a scientific consultancy providing customised data analysis and management solutions in drug discovery and disease treatment strategy development for high-throughput bioarray technologies in acadmeia, medical research and industry. Our innovative Gene Links Search Engine technology accelerates delivery of high-quality drug targets at lower identification and validation costs.


Members: 
Lev Soinov
Members: 
Misha Kapushesky

Leapfrog Ventures

According to the World Tourism Organisation, 698 million people travelled to a foreign country in 2000, spending more than US$478 billion. Yet out of each US$100 spent on vacation tours by a tourist from a developed country, only US$5 actually stays in a developing country destinations economy. At Leapfrog Ventures we have developed an innovative solution to this problem which widens the divide between rich and poor.


Members: 
Nicola Dee
Members: 
Louise Norton

Lift-Pallet

Lift-Pallet is a pallet-container with a floor that ascends and descends automatically as products are loaded and unloaded, having always the top layer of products at the same height from the floor.


Members: 
Xorge Castro

Linguit

Linguit is a human language technology company whose first product is Nuggets, an SMS based internet search engine. Nuggets wallows mobile phone subscribers to text their questions to a service number and receive answers within seconds. The market for premium information services is expected to grow to $100 million by 2006 in the UK alone, a fraction of the billion dollar information services market. Other companies provide SMS based question and answer services but use people to search the internet, whereas Nuggets is automated. Nuggets is much faster than these competing services and costs much less to provide.


Members: 
David Mrva
Members: 
Jochen Leidner
Members: 
Michael S. Cann Jr.
Members: 
Tiphaine Dalmas
Members: 
Maciej Zurawski

Liquid Light Tracks

Using the advantages of inkjet technology and the near infinite bandwidth of photonics technology to overcome the last 10 inch intra chip connection problem encountered by the electronics industry.


Members: 
Jeremy Sosabowski

Loxion Internet Caf

Initially targeted for the distressed community of Khayelitsha Township in Cape Town, South Africa, the Loxion Internet Caf project is designed to be a viable and sustainable business which provides the locals with the opportunity to enhance their entrepreneurship skills, at the same time fulfilling a bigger agenda for the distressed urban and rural communities by reaping the benefits from the digital market economy and internet technology, thus subsequently reducing the knowledge disparity gap between these communities and the upper middle class and rich.


Members: 
Mpumelelo Ncwadi
Members: 
Mohd Hasli Hasan
Members: 
Priti Parikh

LugGuage

LugGuage TM is a patentable lugguage scale that is integrated in the handle of suitcases, trolleys and travel bags and measures the weight of the lugguage. LugGuage TM is based on a simple and reliable mechanism that works without battery power or electrical components. The scale allows travellers to check whether the weight of their lugguage exceeds the limit, avoiding the overweight lugguage charge.


Members: 
Walter Rentzsch
Members: 
Paul Colegrove

MAMIS

Despite being one of the largest organisations in the western world, the NHS's communications systems are antiquated and inefficient; the time it takes for important information to flow through its many layers is a significant bottleneck, and one of the main contributors to the NHS's poor efficiency and slow patient treatment times. We propose a low-cost handheld communications system based on state of the art wireless technology: the Medical and Administrative Mobile Information System (MAMIS).


Members: 
Elean Huang
Members: 
Babar Vaqas

Medicines For Humanity

One-third of the world's population does not have access to essential medicines. Pharmaceutical companies have reputational and financial incentives to donate medicines. However, the medical donations process is not meeting its potential. The key problem is a lack of accurate and comprehensive information on unmet medical needs and sources of donations. The MedMap database will provide this, thereby facilitating communication between donors, recipients, and donation channels, and raising public awareness of good medical donations. By consolidating information crucial to all stakeholders, Medicines for Humanity will enable the distribution of the right medicines to the right people at the right time.


Members: 
Elizabeth Darwin
Members: 
Janet Ginnard
Members: 
Niclas Tue Hansen
Members: 
Robyn Scott

Mobile Positioning Systems

Trying to figure out where you are and where youre going is probably one of man's oldest puzzles. Instead of building up its own network, MPN uses the established reliable matured GSM mobile network to realise positioning function. Since the newly developed algorithm and software can be easily embedded into most recent mobile phones, the low-end users do not need to purchase any further equipment. While for the high-end users, we could provide specially designed equipment that could be a handset, or a headset, or could be installed in a car. The innovational attributes make MPN very accurate and cost-effective. This idea, as well as corresponding multi-stage product and implementation strategy plan, will be implemented based on an entrepreneurial company - Mobile Positioning Network Ltd.


Members: 
Tao Lin
Members: 
Zhihan Wang

MoodLab

Depression and anxiety are poorly diagnosed in primary care. There is a clear need for a reliable, convenient diagnostic system for use in this setting. MoodLab combines cutting-edge technology with statistical models in a hand-held device to provide a reliable, office-based, diagnostic system for depression and anxiety for use I nprimary and specialist care.


Members: 
Gerard Harper
Members: 
Alex Maurer
Members: 
Jan Psrokonski
Members: 
Ian Goodyer

Moonshine Designs

Moonshine Designs is a design consultancy with expertise in product design, styling, engineering, animation, advertising and marketing.


Members: 
Geoff Bland
Members: 
Martin Holden

My Selection

'My Selection' aims to provide simple 'put-it-together' meal sets for people with medically-restricted diets. With a pledge to reduce preparation times to 10 minutes, our product is targeted to young professionals who have little time to cook, yet have high demands for good quality meals.


Members: 
Eleanor Fung
Members: 
Sangeeta Puran
Members: 
Lasair O'Callaghan
Members: 
Siu Kee Tsang

Optical Switch

The product is a MEMS and liquid crystal based optical switch for 'All Optical Networks'. One embodiment of the device deals with electromagnetic control of micro-mirrors, the second embodiment is on control of light math using an electro-optic material and the third embodiment deals with control of micro mirrors using liquid crystals. The product aims to remove the limitations of optical switches introduced by Lecent and Tellium by a considerable extent.


Members: 
Shanek Fernando
Members: 
Dhiraj Sinha

Organic Memory Devices

Organic Memory Devices (OMD) seeks to exploit the discovery of a new organic magnetic material that, thanks to its ease of production and versatility, has the potential to revolutionise the non-volatile read only memory market by replacing existing semiconductor and metallic based technologies.


Members: 
David Aragon
Members: 
Antonio Alberola

Organza

Apart from moving house, planning a wedding ranks among one of the most stressful experiences to be encountered, and that's only the financial side! With so much to take into account the pressure of liaising with so many different people in order to make the day a success inevitably has the potential to detract from the host's enjoyment. However, wedding planning, a lucrative initiative widely employed throughout the United States and still to be fully introduced in the UK can ease the stress by taking control of all the negotiations and administrative tasks, leaving the client with only the gift and the hat to worry about! It also allows still allows them creative leverage to ensure a personalised and unforgettable occasion, taking but a small percentage of the overall cost in return for the removal of a large percentage of the pressure!


Members: 
Hannah Bennett
Members: 
David Morrison

paperlessteacher.com

Interactive website that reduces teachers' paperwork and makes administration enjoyable.


Members: 
Andrew Bruce

PC Backup and Remote Administration Service

By providing a secure managed system we will offer users a worry free computing platform where they are free from the concerns of virus infestation and 'spyware' stealing credit card or identity information.


Members: 
Henry Gomorsall
Members: 
Peter Clifton