The Royal Academy of Engineering is today opening the Taylor Centre, a new space that will underpin the growth of an increasingly vibrant and influential entrepreneurial community created by the Academy’s Enterprise Hub. It will help transform the UK’s best and brightest engineering technology entrepreneurs into the business leaders of tomorrow by providing a brand new place to network, work, and develop their skills.
Flexible meeting and workspaces such as the Taylor Centre are proving crucial to the growth of technology companies; such open and varied settings stimulate collaborative discussions and foster serendipitous encounters that can lead to business relationships. With powerful connectivity and state-of-the-art AV across eight versatile rooms and ‘touch down’ work spaces, the Taylor Centre will provide a professional space for entrepreneurs to develop their ideas, meet investors and potential customers, and take their work to the next stage.
The Taylor Centre is the physical space for the Academy’s Enterprise Hub, which provides funding, mentoring and PR support to entrepreneurs turning their engineering innovations into viable businesses. The Centre is the next piece of this package, bringing excellence, creativity and innovation together under one roof. The Enterprise Hub offers unique one-on-one mentoring with Academy Fellows, who have a wealth of engineering and business experience. Since its inception in 2013, the Hub has helped 61 Members get their businesses off the ground (generating 150 jobs in the process) and its Members have raised over £30m total in follow-on funding and investment for their technologies.
Many of the technologies that Members have developed will be showcased at the Taylor Centre launch event tonight, including:
· StarTracker by Mo-Sys – a highly accurate, robust and reliable VR system that allows any space of any size to be converted into a virtual realm
· doppel – a wristband that mimics the natural rhythm of a heartbeat, doppel can be tuned to help focus or relax the wearer whenever they need it
· Comp-A-Tent – the world’s first fully compostable, plant-based tent, with the potential to save festival organisers millions in clean-up costs
· NeuroSensi by NeuroCONCISE – a wearable technology that measures brainwaves and allows users to interact with computers using their mind
· Marty the robot by Robotical – a 3D printable robot that is used to help children learn to code
· KENOTEQ – a brick made from 90 per cent construction waste, paving the way for highly renewable brick buildings
· Armourgel – a very thin, flexible material that stiffens on impact, this can be used to protect wearers from injuries, such as hip breaks in the elderly
· Bodle Technologies – creators of a pioneering new ‘smart material’ that manipulates lights at a flick of a switch, enabling the creation of vivid smartwatch and other display devices, with dramatically reduced battery consumption
The Taylor Centre is part of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s wider ambition to create a national centre of excellence for engineering. Ana Avaliani, Head of Enterprise, Royal Academy of Engineering, adds:
“The UK is one of the best countries in the world at innovative research and technological development1. Through the Taylor Centre and our wider community, we are helping to turn such innovation into viable engineering technology businesses, supporting UK entrepreneurship in uncertain times. As a place for networking and sharing ideas with fellow innovators and the UK’s leading engineers, the new space will mark a step-change in the support we are able to offer and in the results our Members will achieve and therefore the country’s capacity for engineering innovation. This is the start of something really special.”
Jack Hooper, Hub Member and Co-Founder of doppel, a company that is showcasing their newly launched smart wearable at the Taylor Centre opening, said:
“The mentoring we have been able to access because of the Enterprise Hub has been an enormous support to us, helping us to make the decisions and connections so important to getting our technology to market. The opening of the Taylor Centre will add another level to the Hub’s support, giving us and many other entrepreneurs access to incredible expertise and facilities that will help us grow our businesses.”
The Taylor Centre is open from 10 February. For enquires please contact enterprise@raeng.org.uk or 0207 7660625.
The Taylor Centre was made possible by a generous donation from distinguished inventor and entrepreneur Dr John C Taylor OBE FREng, as well as the support of the late Geoffrey Argent FREng and the Wolfson Foundation, and the kind donation of equipment for the new space from Toshiba UK. The Royal Academy of Engineering thanks these supporters for their invaluable contribution to creating a home for the best of engineering entrepreneurship.
