Audio Analytic

Name: Dr Chris Mitchell
Company: Audio Analytic Ltd
University: Anglia Ruskin
Awarded: £20,000

Chris Mitchell gained his PhD from Anglia Ruskin University and founded Audio Analytic Ltd in Cambridge in August 2008. His system can help security staff pay more attention to events as they develop by signalling unusual activity prompted by the sounds it picks up.

Imagine you're a security guard monitoring a large bank of screens. After a while you become less aware of changing situations. There's too much information to keep track of. Using microphones and sophisticated software to trigger alerts, Audio Analytic's technology can pinpoint activity that requires a response. The company has created a patent and securing finance from the NESTA-NCGE Graduate Entrepreneur Fund which aims to help make the business a world leader.

Website: www.audioanalytic.com

Fluvial Innovations Ltd

Name: Simon Phelps
Company: Fluvial Innovations Ltd
University: Bournemouth
Awarded: £25,900

Simon Phelps graduated from Bournemouth University in 2004 with a BSc (Hons) degree in Computer Aided Product Design. He founded Fluvial Innovations Ltd on 14th July 2006. The company is based in Poole, Dorset (South West RDA). He was an NCGE-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Fellow in the scheme’s first year, 2007.

Fluvial Innovations is an award winning company that provides functional and economical solutions against the risk of flood damage. Using a unique patented modular flood barrier, easily assembled by a single person, FLOODSTOP is a direct substitute for sandbags and has been purchased by various government agencies in the UK.

Website: www.fluvial-innovations.co.uk

Scratchface Ltd

Names: Luke Jefferson and Luke Walsh
Company: Scratchface Ltd
Universities: East Anglia and York
Awarded up to: £24,000

Luke Jefferson, a University of East Anglia graduate, and Luke Walsh, a graduate from the University of York, met while they were both NCGE-Kauffman International Entrepreneurship Fellows (now FlyingStart Global Entrepreneurs) in 2007. Together they have set about developing and commercialising computer algorithms that help people with colour-blindness use computers more effectively.

Their technology, Huetility, uses algorithms originally developed by Luke Jefferson in the course of his PhD research to create software that will help the 2.5 million people in the UK whose sight is affected by colour-blindness to understand colour representations on screen, on a variety of devices. Colour-blindness affects approximately 8% of men and 0.5% of women in the UK, inhibiting their perception of colour variations that normal colour sighted people register effortlessly. This is not only frustrating for a sufferer, but can present great barriers to effective computer use in certain graphics, colour coded data and charts.