If there is someone you would like to add to the list, please email us directly. Please see our shortlist below!
Osama F Rama – Lessgo
Osama F Rama is the founder of social wellbeing app Lessgo. Lessgo was created to help users connect with one another online to enable them to meet in person. In this manner, the online meeting helps to facilitate the offline meeting, with the platform aiming to increase actual human interactions.
The founders believe that humans are “happier and stronger when we are together doing the things we love”, and that human interaction is supposed to take place mainly offline. They want Lessgo to become somewhere for people to meet in small or large groups, with people that they already know or people that they would like to meet.
This should also help businesses, companies and organisations to increase their discoverability through the app. In addition to this, businesses should find it easier to engage with communities through being able to reach a larger audience online, whilst simultaneously building trust.
Ayesha Ofori – Axion Property Partners
Ayesha Ofori is a Physics graduate from Imperial College London, and had never considered the possibility of having a career in finance or property before she attended university.
She attended a talk during her time at Imperial College where she was introduced to the world of banking, where she discovered she was capable of applying her Physics degree to a new career due to her analytical skills. Ayesha realised that she wanted her career to do something meaningful, and she went on to found her own company Axion Property Partners in 2018. Axion currently specialises in sourcing funding for various property projects which help to provide affordable housing.
Ayesha has also created PropELLE and Black Property Network. Education is at the centre of PropELLE, which is a community created to help and support women with property investment. It is also at the forefront of Black Property Network (BPN), which helps to benefit individuals from minority groups. The organisation specifically focuses on black communities, and helps minority ethnic people to make a start on their career in property investment alongside developing their financial literacy skills.
Having managed to build her own successful property portfolio, Ayesha was an ideal candidate to help other women in her situation take similar steps. When attending property investment events, Ayesha noticed that many women who do decide to invest in the property market end up getting stuck at the buy-to-let stage. Ayesha aims to change this and help women to construct useful and successful property portfolios.
Dr Azeem Alam, BEM – BiteMedicine
Dr Azeem Alam is currently working as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and is also an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow within the Surgery and Cancer Department at Imperial College London. Soon, he will also begin an Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF) in General Surgery at Imperial as part of his run-through clinical surgical training.
In addition to this, Azeem is the founder of his own company, BiteMedicine. This is a medical education platform which has taught over 20,000 students during the Covid-19 pandemic. This led Azeem to be included in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list of 2021 and also meant he received a British Empire Medal.
BiteMedicine is run by a team of medics, coders, designers, thinkers and explorers and they are motivated by the idea that the best work often comes from a combination of curiosity, craftmanship and fun.
Azeem is also particularly thankful for the support of his professors during his studies, and believes that it is their help that has enabled him to publish more than 25 publications. He has also achieved coveted positions as an academic foundation doctor and academic clinical fellow (ACF) in surgery since graduating and is appreciative of the inspiration, guidance, and mentorship they offered to him.
Luke Holland – Shrinoku
Luke Holland and his three housemates from university founded their company, Shirinoku, whilst being stuck in their flat over lockdown. The project sprang from a business module assignment in their final year of study, alongside their own desire to help reconnect city dwellers with nature.
Whilst trapped inside over lockdown, they really noticed the mental health benefits of having plants inside and begin buying them like crazy. However, living in a stuffy London apartment, they also quickly ran out of space for our new plant purchases. They wanted to create a simple way for people in small, cramped flats to add greenery to their homes – the Noku Canvas was born. The Noku Canvas is a new way to display houseplants as part of a modular system that is self-watering, wall-mounted, and display plants like art. It allows anyone to create their own green wall at home.
After spending several months prototyping and planting (always having at least one 3D printer whirring away in our kitchen), they decided they were ready to push their idea out. They realised that crowdfunding was the best way get funded, and so decided to launch the Noku Canvas on Kickstarter. They then had a frantic couple of months scrambling to get everything ready, completely learning on the job. None of the team had ever done videography or social media marketing before.
When they finally launched, the reaction was incredible. They reached our goal within 5 hours and ended up raising an amazing £139,000 over the 30 days. They are now producing almost 5,000 Noku Canvases in the UK to send all over the world and are about to launch in physical stores and other crowdfunding platforms incredibly soon. Noku Canvas’ are currently available to order via the company website.
Gabriel Yoong, Cameron Brown, William Cox & Maysa Abadi – Honeycomb Network
Honeycomb Network aims to establish the safest, smartest and most convenient charging and storage network to empower the urban modal shift from cars to micromobility. Honeycomb was founded by 4 Imperial College engineering students (Gabriel Yoong, Cameron Brown, William Cox, Maysa Abadi), who came together over a university entrepreneurship project.
After conducting market research and seeing amazing amounts of public and corporate interest in the project, they decided to apply for a grant, during their final year exams, to further validate the interest. It was at this point where they decided to put aside their graduate plans and founded Honeycomb Network in July 2021.
Since incorporation, Honeycomb began a £131k public grant project to produce its proof-of-concept e-scooter locker, was accepted into The Greenhouse (a climate focused accelerator) and closed the pre-seed funding round for £127k with SFC Capital. They are currently developing their novel infrastructure, which uses smart charging algorithms to elongate battery life aiming to run in January 2022 and trial a micro network of the infrastructure shortly after. They’re currently pulling together a consortium to run an e-scooter infrastructure trial in the UK, which will both prove their solution and provide valuable data to inform policy makers on UK e-scooter legalisation.
In the meantime, they are also adapting their technology to create a universal e-bike charging solution that can be retrofitted into existing bike storage. There are a few funding rounds and important partnerships to make in the interim but the end goal for Honeycomb is to establish infrastructure networks globally to allow people to safely and easily switch to micromobility.
If there is someone you would like to add to the list, please email us directly.
