Member Article

£10k prize available in 2017 Merseyside Innovation Awards

Have you created the next big thing? Have you come up with a product, service or solution that will transform a sector?

If you have, and you think a £10,000 investment would help you take it to the next level, the Merseyside Innovation Awards want to hear from you.

For 22 years the MIA has been working to uncover innovators in manufacturing, technology, services, healthcare and consumer products across the region.

Each year the awards select monthly winners between January and May before choosing the three best to go through to the final, where they go head-to-head in front of a panel of expert judges to compete for a first prize of £10,000 to spend on their business.

The runners-up get £2,000 of professional support from the MIA sponsor group, which includes MC Vanguard Corporate Finance, Unilever, Trustech, Dewinter, Liverpool and Sefton Chambers of Commerce, Liverpool City Region LEP, Natwest, Insider Media, The University of Liverpool, Village Software, WP Thompson, O’Connors LLP and BBC Radio Merseyside.

Last year’s winner was Reach and Rescue, the Knowsley-based manufacturer of a unique carbon-fibre telescopic rescue pole which can be used by emergency services, including coastguards, to access casualties in hard-to-reach places.

The runners-up, who narrowly missed out on the main prize were Immersive Interactive, a Southport-based firm which has created an immersive room which can be used to create lifelike simulated conditions for training emergency services staff or to create interactive learning spaces for children, including those with special educational needs, up to university students.

2017 will also be the second year that the MIA presents its Prestige Award. This is open to businesses with a turnover of £1m to £25m who are continuing to innovate on Merseyside, creating jobs and investment on a larger scale.

Last year the first ever Prestige Award was won by Perceptive Engineering, the Daresbury-based Advanced Process Control firm.

Awards founder Brian McCann, partner and director of MC Vanguard Corporate Finance, said: “Merseyside Innovation Awards is a great place for innovative companies and individuals to showcase their ideas and along the way it offers them the opportunity to be guided by one of the wide range of the sponsors involved with the awards.”

To enter the 2017 Merseyside Innovation Awards visit www.merseysideinnovationawards.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mike Stephenson .