When she struggled to find the right UK health therapies for her daughter's health condition, Michelle Connor decided to launch her own business.
The Lisburn woman has this week been named as one of the winners of Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Awards. Michelle joins a cohort of 50 winners who will each benefit from a £50,000 grant, one-to-one business coaching, and a suite of networking, role modelling, and training opportunities.
She is the co-founder of Kinva and has created an innovative AI platform that connects health therapists from around the world with potential clients - the inspiration comes from her daughter’s rare genetic disorder.
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The awards "reflect the government’s ambition to give more support to women innovators and business leaders". The range of innovations from across the UK are vast, from health tech to education and from protecting lives to new ways to play music.
The flagship Women in Innovation Awards is a key part of Innovate UK’s commitment to boosting the number of women entrepreneurs. Innovate UK will give all 50 trailblazers £50,000 and bespoke mentoring and coaching to enable them to scale-up their businesses.
Now in its sixth year, the competition drew a record number of 920 applications from women business leaders, 10% up from last year, reflecting the growing number of women-led businesses in the UK.
Emily Nott, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Programmes at Innovate UK said: "Each year I am blown away by the brilliant ideas and talent we uncover through our Women in Innovation programme. Despite these challenging economic times, this year’s winners have shown great leadership, passion and resilience in driving their innovations forward. Innovate UK will work alongside them now to ensure they have the resources and support required to grow and scale their businesses, while encouraging a new generation of women to get involved in innovation, pursue their ambitions and transform our economy and society."
Indro Mukerjee, CEO of Innovate UK, said: "The Innovate UK Women in Innovation programme is an important part of our many activities to make a real difference to the talent and skills pipeline for UK business innovation by inspiring, involving and investing in greater diversity. I warmly congratulate all the Women in Innovation Award winners and look forward to keeping in touch as they progress."
Details on all 50 women innovators can be found here. If you’re an aspiring women innovator, check out how Innovate UK could support you here.
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