A business that “wants to make avoidable blindness a thing of the past for everyone, everywhere” has been heralded as a star of the future after winning at the annual MSDUK Innovation Challenge Awards.
VUI Diagnostics was announced as the winner after the 12 finalists presented their innovations to potential investors, buyers, and industry experts via an intensive, live online pitch at the MSDUK Virtual Business Expo. The awards are the culmination of the biggest event of its kind, showcasing the best of ethnic minority businesses and championing diversity in the supply chain. Four category winners and the overall winner were chosen by a panel of judges who scored the finalists on criteria including relevance, quality of innovation and marketing strategy.
CTO of VUI Diagnostics, Dr Uddhav Vaghela said, “1.3 billion people suffer from avoidable blindness worldwide. At VUI we have a plug-and- play imaging device and software to help doctors detect eye disease early. Winning a major award such as this is obviously a very proud moment for us as a team and a business. More importantly perhaps, this is the chance to spread the message about our goal of tackling this challenge with simple, affordable retinal imaging for anyone, anywhere. We thank MSDUK for the award and this wonderful opportunity.”
Over 100 award submissions were made from across the UK, including Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Bristol, and Cardiff and 43% are female founders. This year’s finalists also come from a wide spread of ethnic backgrounds including Bangladeshi, Indian, Caribbean, African, Chinese, and Arab. VUI Diagnostics won the overall award and their category, receiving a £5,000 cash prize plus introductions to MSDUK’s global investor network and workshops. The other category winners were; Brarista (Advanced Digital Technologies category), Solaris Kit (Social Innovation category) and Pip & Henry (Sustainable Futures category).
By allowing earlier and easier detection of eye diseases in primary care, VUI Diagnostics’ “ViewEye” aims to enhance opportunistic community retinal screening to promote timely patient accessibility to specialist eye care services. Sponsored by Cummins, GSK, Accenture, EY, Digital Catapult and Eaton, this year’s theme was ‘Better Ideas for a Better World’ and entrants had the opportunity of entering any of four categories; Advanced Digital Technology, Healthcare & Wellbeing, Social Innovation, and Sustainable Futures.
Headline sponsor and Challenge judge James Johnson, from Cummins, said, “The innovations this year, especially from VUI Diagnostics were fantastic, and having been involved in the Innovation Challenge from the beginning I can see the growth in reach and quality each time. At Cummins we are proud to be the headline sponsor for the fourth year and long may it continue”.
