Envious of the thriving start-up culture enjoyed by west coast universities, successful British entrepreneur Dr Reuben Wilcock has launched Future Worlds (www.futureworlds.com), a start-up platform and incubator at the University of Southampton.
Future Worlds brings together aspiring innovators with millionaire entrepreneurs and industry experts and, for the first time, will be showcasing products to a global audience at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Future Worlds comprises a web platform, an impressive network of mentors and a product incubator.
Mentors include Chris Broad, director of Apple Europe; Mike Payne, founder of Solidworks; and Shirin Dehghan, who made an $85 million cash exit from her startup Arieso in 2013.
Dehghan said: “It's fantastic to see enterprise-minded people at the University of Southampton working together on this model example of a start-up community. This is much needed in the UK.”
The engaging web platform includes professionally-shot videos from startups and mentors as well as details of networking events and funding opportunities.
By surrounding aspiring entrepreneurs with such a high calibre of support and investment, Wilcock's initiative is helping grow a west coast US style startup culture on the South Coast.
He said: "The UK has less than 1% of the world’s population yet we produce 16% of all top-quality published research. Growing a thriving startup culture is the best way to help leading innovators change the world with their ideas, and Future Worlds is making this happen.”
One startup supported by Future Worlds is BluPoint, which is in talks with The Gates Foundation having received £500,000 from Innovate UK to deploy its local web product across the developing world.
Another startup, Crossa, is a community-powered roadside assistance app for cyclists, founded by semi-professional rider Agata Tomaszewska. He said: “Future Worlds has been an invaluable resource when it comes to advice and high-value introductions. The mentoring and training that we received has been absolutely amazing.”
From January 6 - 9, Future Worlds will be demonstrating a patented geodesic lighting technology called CurveStar and a long-range wireless motion capture system called SharkStream at the Consumer Electronics Show.
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