Winners 2024
EIBF Champion of Champions Competition 2024
The sixth EIBF Champion of Champions Competition Grand Final took place at the Royal Academy of Engineering on 8 November 2024.
Ten university teams comprising engineering students and graduates pitched their ideas and innovations to win a share of the £16,500 prize pot, mentoring from Sainsbury Management Fellows and prizes from our sponsors, PurpleCV and Cambridge University Press.
The background
The Grand Final was the culmination of a series of enterprise competitions held at universities across the UK, encouraging students to bring together engineering, science and business. This year, we received a record number of entries, with our shortlisting panel finding it very difficult to whittle the innovative ideas down to the final ten.
After participating in a Coaching and Publicity Day where our finalists received mentoring and opportunities to hone their pitch ready for the big day, they took to the stage alongside TV presenter and engineer Rob Bell, who guided contestants through the spotlight of the show.
The finalists competed in two categories – Big Ideas and Startup, with chances to win a series of prizes totalling £16,500. Each of the finalists had just three minutes to pitch their ideas and then had to answer questions from our judging panel. After a nail-biting wait for the results, the winners were revealed.
The Winners
The Enterprise Award of £5,000 plus mentoring was awarded to pAiback from the University of Southampton. The team also picked up the Startup runner-up prize of £1,500. pAiback is an AI-powered travel assistant designed to ensure travellers never overpay for a flight – even after booking.
The Startup main prize of £3,000 plus mentoring was won by Medscribe from the University of Nottingham. Medscribe uses AI to transform doctors’ notes into patient-friendly documentation at the click of a button.
The Big Ideas main prize of £3,000 plus mentoring was won by The Algae Photobioreactor from Cardiff University. The team, which also picked up the Pre-Show Public Vote of £500, uses the power of algae to reduce carbon emissions through solar powered devices that could be placed in any location across the country.
The Big Ideas runner-up prize of £1,500 was won by FilTerra from the University of Bath. FilTerra aims to tackle the growing issue of microplastics in water by using a biochar-based filter that captures microplastics during the recycling process before sludge is repurposed as fertiliser.
The Best Presentation award of £1,000, sponsored by PurpleCV, went to Lancaster University’s Parasolar team, which developed a solar-powered parasol.
The In-Show Public Vote award of £500 was won by Qualboat from Imperial College London for their autonomous boat that surveys water quality and uses AI to make intelligent predictions.
And the new Social Media Prize of £500 was picked up by Leximos from the University of Dundee. Leximos is an AI-powered language coaching app designed to help users build confidence and improved speaking skills through personalised, scenario-based mock interviews and real-life conversational practice.
The Winning Innovations
The judges
SMF Dr Chris Martin, Chairman, Tokamak Energy Ltd
SMF Ms Jo Hallas, Non-Executive Director, Smith+Nephew
SMF Dr Simon Barnes, Managing Partner, Circada Ventures LLP
Mr Stephen Lamb, Chief Research Officer, Asymptote Ltd
Thank you to our sponsors
Our thanks and appreciation must go to our long-standing prize sponsors. As well as providing a £1,000 prize for Best Presentation, PurpleCV provided personal CV packages to all participants in each winning team and CUP (Cambridge University Press) provided Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship books to each winning team. Each winning team also won a copy of the book, Double Your Price, by EIBF President David Falzani MBE.