Oxford Foundry launches four new innovations for COVID-19 recovery
OXFORD FOUNDRY
The Oxford Foundry today announces the four new innovative solutions it will support on the OXFO COVID-19 Rapid Solutions Builder. The four critical solutions were chosen by a team of international judges from more than 100 entries after a rigorous selection process – based on their ability to have a real, tangible societal impact, their viability and ability to implement and their potential for rapid growth.
The four winning solutions are:
Healthcare stream
My110: A saliva-test for COVID-19, which is easier and non-invasive compared with other means of testing. My110 went through Entrepreneur First and the team has deep diagnostics development knowledge, protein chemistry and nanomedicine expertise. They hope to unlock the potential for more widespread daily screening through a rapidly scalable, reliable, low-cost screening tool, which can be taken at home and combined with tracking software to ensure the accuracy of each test result. Diagnostics have been undervalued but immunoassay testing is now estimated to be an $18bn market. The team has a proof of concept and is working with leading industry partners.
Education stream
Devie: an AI-powered coaching app to support parents of babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers. The personalised platform helps parents actively to engage in their child’s development, address parenting challenges and improve wellbeing. Devie is currently being used by 550 parents and has had very positive feedback from its 100 strong user-group. Devie targets the new generation of parents, who regularly use apps and technology for self-support. With the closure of nurseries due to COVID-19, Devie provides a lifeline of support for parents and can help maintain best practice and stability for early childhood development.
Inclusive social engagement and mobility stream
Oblivious AI is building tools to enable AI to respect the security and privacy of sensitive data, transforming how data is processed by both governments and industry. Oblivious AI is currently working in different States in India to contact-trace COVID-19 in hundreds of thousands of citizens, while maintaining their privacy. It is in talks with other international governments about COVID-19 contact-tracing and is working with industry partners including Amazon Web Services, Oracle and Strategic Blue.
Operations, Logistics and Supply chains stream
Crowdless: an app which shows the extent of crowds in supermarkets and shops, to help people avoid crowds and queues and be empowered to make decisions. Since launching on the App Store, the team has received thousands of sign-ups a day and has been featured on the BBC and in the Guardian and the international press. Crowdless is also one of the 13 ventures the Foundry has been supporting rapidly to scale, following winning best postgraduate idea as Lanterne in the Foundry’s All-Innovate competition last year.
My110 and Crowdless have both been awarded Innovate UK funding aimed at fast-tracking the development of innovations borne out of the Coronavirus crisis.
Ana Bakshi, Director of the Foundry, says, “Universities are homes of innovation that provide critical sources of income, impact, and job creation for government and the economy. With the onset of the pandemic, it was vital that we mobilised our networks and leveraged our community as quickly as possible, this included repurposing nearly 100% of the team’s time to the COVID-19 action plan.
“The ventures we support are having an impact in hospitals, care homes, schools and other sectors. Cutting edge innovation will be at the forefront of economic and societal recovery and resilience, so we must build and invest in solutions that respond to the secondary and tertiary challenges of the pandemic as quickly and sustainably as possible.”
Mohamed Amersi, Chairman of the Amersi Foundation, states, “Finding and building at speed and scale, reliable ways to test and treat populations across the world for COVID-19 is of the utmost priority. Going forward, there are many other challenges for which we need to find scalable solutions, including access to affordable healthcare. Oxford University has shown it has world-class talent and innovation and some of the ventures that the Oxford Foundry work with have enormous potential to make a positive difference to our pandemic recovery.”
Terence Stephenson, Chair of the Health Research Authority (HRA), says, “There has never been a more important time to work together to address the challenges we face in healthcare. Not just the immediate needs of diagnosis and treatment, but the longer-term needs of how to improve efficiencies, build resilience and manage demand. Government, research, business, entrepreneurship and the public and private sectors need to come together to plan and implement solutions now rather than later.”
Alexsis de Raadt St. James, Founder and Managing Partner of Merian Ventures, says, “The world faces a myriad of challenges to address the pandemic of today and the uncertain world of tomorrow. But I know that these entrepreneurs and the global network supporting them will be fundamental to developing the solutions that will allow us to build a better future.”
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Merian Ventures is a venture firm founded by Alexsis de Raadt St. James that invests in women-founded and co-founded tech innovation in the US and UK.