And sadly, as all good things do, the end of our bootcamp journey has arrived, leaving a SUCCESS-sized hole in all of our lives! Thankfully, this is only the start of the SUCCESS programme and there will be many opportunities over the coming weeks and months for our participants to catch up, learn from world-leading experts in their respective fields, and build their projects into their next phase.
The final day of the bootcamp focused on “how to get noticed”, and how this can still be possible in a world without face-to-face interaction, and how to plan for a post-COVID environment. The day concentrated on:
- Planning your communication strategy
- Planning customer conversations
- Finding the right people to talk to
- What events should you aim to attend?
- What do funders want to see and hear?
- Building an engaging pitch
- Practice makes perfect!
The strength and depth of the cohort, as well as of the Technology Transfer Offices, made for lively discussions and a nationwide pooling of expertise, experience and knowledge, providing fascinating insights into strategy and funder expectations.
Networking, partnership building and negotiating are not easy skills to master, particularly in an online environment, but the project team had re-imagined the entrepreneurial training, with the magic button making a reappearance for virtual networking training. Practicing and refining pitching is a key pillar of the SUCCESS programme in order to equip the cohort with the skills and knowledge to develop their research opportunities into viable spin-out opportunities that can create significant transformation for the wider society. Each project has materially progressed during the course of the SUCCESS programme which is particularly noticeable in the ability of all of our cohort in pitching and translating their research into commercial language.
As one journey ends, so another one will begin. We look forward to new, innovative, insightful, engaging sessions from a diverse group of investors, funders and stakeholders within the innovation landscape, and to supporting the cohort in phases 2 and 3 of the SUCCESS programme – I can’t wait to see what comes next!
