Welcome to the March edition of Vikela’s monthly technology & business development newsletter. We hope our readers have had a good month and enjoy reading about our month which has been packed with good news and industry engagements 👏
ADS Innovation Award
🔐 One of the major highlights of March was exhibiting at Security & Policing 2024, where we had some great traction with the Security industry including other companies and government branches. Thank you to everyone who came by our stand to learn more about our lightweight, flexible stab protection solutions.
📢 We are immensely proud to have been awarded the ADS Security Innovation Award after the live final pitches during the exhibition. This award is specifically designed to identify those capabilities that have caused a step change in the effectiveness of the UK’s ability to prevent, respond to, and reduce the impact of or investigate risks and incidents.
“Wednesday saw Vikela take the top prize in our Innovation Awards (image above). Vikela are a small organisation from Northern Ireland comprised of very talented young individuals who are the previous recipients of ADS Sustainability Challenge Funding.” – Kevin Craven, ADS Chief Executive
It is really exciting for Vikela to have been recognised for our innovation, application, inclusivity & sustainability in this process. Thank you to ADS Group Ltd and the judging panel for your attention, questions, and decision to recognise our next generation protection products.
London Tech Bridge Engagement
⚓ Another highlight of March has been our engagement with London Tech Bridge, a collaboration between the US Navy and Royal Navy whose mission is to find technology to make sailors and marines more efficient, more effective, happier, or less burdened.
For #InternationalWomensDay2024 Vikela COO Jenny Gregg was invited to give a presentation at an industry engagement event organised by the Royal Navy Servicewomen’s Network Group. This was a brilliant opportunity to present on Vikela’s upcoming female specific products to a focus group of US/UK sailors and marines that attended the event.
📍Later in March it was a pleasure to then welcome the Tech Bridge representatives to our Belfast site for a tour and to tell them more about our technology and manufacturing process.
We are looking forward to engaging further with the London Tech Bridge team and exploring how we can contribute to their mission.
Made In Northern Ireland Awards
⚙️ In other exciting news we are pleased to share that we have been shortlisted for the Manufacturing Start-up Award category at the Insider Media Made in Northern Ireland Awards 2024.
⚙️ These awards are a showcase of the quality products and services that manufacturing and engineering companies from across Northern Ireland supply and the skilled people that work for them. The winners will be revealed at the Awards lunch taking place on Friday 17th May at The Titanic Museum in Belfast (tickets available here https://lnkd.in/gkPb_XMd)
Other News and Points of Interest
🦺 Our audience might find this article from BodyArmorNews.com interesting, as it goes into some detail on why the body armour industry is so ready for change as well as some global contexts around that.
📢 ADS SME Spotlight Feature: we are proud to be one of the six ADS Group Ltd March & April SME spotlight members, a monthly feature that highlights companies delivering world-leading capabilities in the security, defence, aerospace & space sectors.
🇺🇸 It was great for Peter Gilleece to have the opportunity for plenty of customer engagement while in Boston & New York with Young Enterprise NI.
Thank you for reading our newsletter and we’re looking forward to bringing you more updates through the busy month ahead – as always get in touch with us if you want to book a chat or have any questions.
We’ll be back with our next newsletter at the end of April, have a great Easter in the meantime, The Vikela Team 👋
