From the 25th to the 26th of November we hosted participants from the EIT Health Bootcamp tour.
EIT Health Bootcamps are intensive incubation programmes for start-ups and entrepreneurial teams in which teams are trained over a period up to three months to validate both product-market fit and problem-solution fit in a European context. Each Bootcamp hosts a mix of teams from all over Europe. Teams include MSc, MD and PhD students, as well as post-docs and professionals, who have a business idea for a product that is still in the research and development stage. Participants choose two European cities to visit as part of the Bootcamp Tour and we were delighted to be chosen by digital and medical device technology companies from several different Bootcamps.
EIT Health bootcamp tour cohort
Representatives visited us from Brainguard, deepc, Luminate Medical, Onira Research, Pearl fertility also trading as ColoriMetrix, Scope Biosciences, SLAM Ortho, and TaiaCare. They attended two days of pitch training organised by TheHill at St Peters College, Oxford. On day one they benefited from interactive pitch training from Megan Morys-Carter, Programme Director of TheHill, and from Peer2Peer coaching also provided by Megan along with Elsbeth Geukers, Programme Manager for EIT Health. They also received an introduction to how innovation works in the NHS from Nick de Pennington, Innovation and Population Health Lead, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.
@nick_de_p giving a comprehensive overview of the Oxford ecosystem, and working in the #NHS, to a large group of start-ups at the recent boot camp with @thehilloxford. Well run and heavily attended event. Such a great team led by @meganmorys. #innovation pic.twitter.com/e6izmoF9W0
— tategilchrist (@tategilchrist) December 10, 2019
On day two teams met Imran Mahmud, a founder at Nye Health, who presented a case study in a successful start-up journey. Teams polished their pitches with help from Placi Espejo, Head of Business Development at Oxford Technology park, before presenting to an expert jury consisting of Jim Gabriel, Alexander Finlayson, Nick de Pennington and Lucy Edwards The winners of the competition were Brainguard, deepc and SLAM Orthotic.
The tour concluded with a visit to the John Radcliffe hospital where TheHill hosted a networking event in the George Pickering Education Centre. European visitors mingled with attendees from the Oxfordshire and Thames Valley ecosystem and the pitch competition winners presented their companies and then the audience before joining the audience to hear David Walliker, Chief Digital and Partnerships Officer for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust speak on the importance of digital innovation.
Laura Lohoff of Deepc, credit TechTribe
The event was well received with Oxford visitors interested to hear about the Bootcamps and express advance interest in the Open API Bootcamp TheHill will be organising in 2020. European visitors were appreciative of the depth and range of the programme and hope to come back soon for clinical trials of their products.