Enterprise award (Champion of champions award)

On 28th October 2019 engineering students, graduates and postgraduates competed for a prestigious Engineers in Business Competition award and a share of a £10,000 prize pot. Ten teams from UK universities were short-listed to pitch their business innovations at the Champion of Champions Grand Final at the Royal Academy of Engineering – the awards ceremony was attended by Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the patron of the Engineers in Business Competition (EIBC). 

Amira Eltokhy (PhD in Engineering), Mohamed Said (PhD in Science); Basel Barakat (PhD in Engineering) and Katherine Alvarez (Computing with Software) make up the Rapid Bio-Labs team, which aims to help medical researchers in their war against diseases through digital cell counting - this is a fundamental process that medical researchers have to perform but is currently costing them an average of 6 hours a day. 

Rapid Bio-Labs’ innovation is an artificial intelligence software solution which would allow researchers to upload a picture of their microscope plate and have the number of cells instantly, giving them more time for research. The Engineers in Business Competition inspires engineers to gain business skills through their university enterprise competitions. They then harness their combined engineering and business skills to create innovations that can change people’s lives and improve the lived environment.

Rapid Bio-Labs won its university heat of the Engineers in Business Competition receiving £3,000 to assist with the development of its innovation. The team then entered the Engineers in Business Grand Final and won a place in the Champion of Champions Final.

The Dragons’ Den Style competition saw each team present their pitch and answer questions from the judges who were: 
Ana Avaliani, Head of Enterprise, Royal Academy of Engineering 
Tim Chapman, Director, Arup - Infrastructure 
Andrew Doe, a Sainsbury Management Fellow, a serial entrepreneur, a highly experienced e-commerce and digital leader and a non-exec director 
Kate Beresford, Head of Membership and Operation, Enterprise Educators UK

THEY WON 1st PRIZE

Champion of Champions

"I am delighted to see that the Engineers in Business Competition has produced so many excellent entries, many of which, in my judgement, have real commercial potential," said Lord Sainsbury. "I am awarding the Enterprise Award to the University of Greenwich's Rapid Bio-Labs team, because they are the competitors that I judge to have the best commercial potential, in order to encourage them to proceed with the commercialisation of their product."

"We're so excited about this award," said Amira, "It is very prestigious and validation for our idea which is needed. We've had a dream to create this service for one and a half years. We didn't imagine we'd get this far in the competition, but we believed in ourselves and we've done it!"