Welcome to the June edition of Vikela’s monthly technology & business development newsletter.
As we hit the halfway point of 2024 we have enjoyed another busy month of competition activity, working closely with industry experts, and taking part in the fantastic Generation Innovation programme in Belfast.
We hope our readers have had a good month and enjoy reading our latest newsletter 👏
Rising Stars Final at London Tech Week
June was off to a great start with Peter Gilleece pitching Vikela’s groundbreaking technology offerings on the Founder Stage at London Tech Week after making it to the Grand Final of the Tech Nation Rising Stars competition out of 500 applicants 🌠
There was an impressive line-up of judges from across the tech sector:
🌟 Deirdre O’Neill, Co-Founder Fertility Health
🌟 Tej Lalvani, CEO Viabiotics
🌟 Julia Hogged, CEO, London Stock Exchange
🌟 Simon Bumfrey, Head of Technology and life sciences HSBC Banking
🌟 Oliver Kent-Bragam Co-Founder Marshmallow
Following the live pitches we were thrilled to have been announced as second place in such a high quality pool of innovative tech solutions.
Congratulations again to the winners Novai & other runners up Lambda Agritech 👏
A huge thank you again to Tech Nation, the sponsors and judges for running such a fantastic competition. #RisingStars #WeAreRisingStars #LondonTechWeek #Startups
Generation Innovation 2024
👩💻 One of the major highlights of June for us was taking part in the Generation Innovation work experience programme 2024 in Belfast as a partner company. Throughout the week we worked with a brilliant team of young people who worked through a challenge statement posed by us and learnt lots of new skills to equip them for their future in the process.
❓ The challenge: This year we asked the participants to research new markets the Vikela lightweight, flexible protective material could be applied to, giving them the design thinking freedom to come up with a new product range idea.
💡 The results: We were so impressed by the solution our team pitched, identifying a market for accessories to protect dogs from attacks by other dogs and naming it ‘Indestructidog’.
✅ At the end of the week the participants had the chance to present their idea to Vikela senior management during a company visit, followed by an exciting final pitch-off. The judges were as impressed with the team’s ideas as us, and we were very proud that our team made it to the pitch final at the end of the day, presenting their idea to 500 people.
⭐ Inspiring the next generation of innovation is an important part of our mission, and the Generation Innovation programme is a great example of how we can help make this happen. In this spirit we are looking forward to welcoming two of last year’s participants for a summer work experience programme at Vikela over the coming months.
Thanks again to the Generation Innovation & Catalyst teams for making it all happen, and well done again to our team of participants 👏 #generationinnovation2024 #workexperience #designthinking
Other News in June
⚙️ Manufacturing Updates
Over the next two months we will be starting work on our factory floor update to increase our manufacturing capacity, and we look forward to being able to share updates on our factory opening event later this year.
🔐 ADS Security Event
Towards the end of the month some of the team headed to London for the ADS Security & Networking event, hearing a briefing from the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) about current threats and issues in the sector.
Thank you to ADS Group Ltd and Paul Williams for organising this member’s briefing session, it was great to attend.
Thank you for reading our latest newsletter and we’re looking forward to bringing you more updates over the summer – as always get in touch with us if you want to book a chat or have any questions. If you know someone you think it would be good for us to have a conversation with, we would always appreciate being put in touch.
Look out for our next newsletter at the end of July and have a great month in the meantime,
The Vikela Team 👋
