MEET OUR CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS JUDGES

The industry experts who will be judging this year’s Champion of Champions grand final have been announced.

The quartet will be tasked with scoring pitches from the UK’s top engineering talent as ten teams of student innovators compete to win £16,000 worth of prizes at the Royal Academy of Engineering on Friday 3 November.

Judges will be grading students’ three-minute presentations based on set criteria:

• The originality of the idea
• How the idea addresses a need in society
• Clearly defined target audiences and the benefits of the innovation
• Viability of the idea
• How effectively the business idea is presented in the entry materials and the presentation

Meet this year’s judges

Andrew has over 30 years’ experience in software industry innovation, business development, sales and management. He is passionate about sustainability, data-driven value generation and partnering.

Over the past 15 years he has been advising companies on digital transformation and innovation to help them gain value from their technology investments. Andrew spends much of his spare time mentoring and supporting young engineers.

Andrew is a Sainsbury Management Fellow and completed his MBA at INSEAD in 1992. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Andrew Doe is a highly experienced digital leader, a serial entrepreneur, non-exec director and angel investor. He has particular expertise in e-commerce which he is now bringing into the digital healthcare industry.

His unique experience ranges from hands-on leadership of some of the largest eCommerce business units, through industrial-scale digital transformation programmes, to building VC-backed digital businesses from scratch. His expertise lies in creating and optimising innovative digital customer propositions at scale, by bridging technology and data with effective marketing.

Andrew currently sits on the board of two early stage technology businesses including award-winning climate tech business ViridiCO2 which has developed a catalyst that turns carbon dioxide into useful chemical products and education technology provider Kinteract. 

Andrew is a Sainsbury Management Fellow and completed his MBA at INSEAD in 1991. He is a Chartered Engineer with a degree in Electronic Engineering from The University of Southampton.

Caroline is a mechanical engineer by background and brings a wealth of nearly 20 years of experience of working with early-stage technology companies to accelerate their innovations into the marketplace and a strong track record in developing enterprise support programmes and incubators, creating innovation ecosystems.

At the University of Surrey, she is the Director of Surrey Innovation District, focusing on supporting the business community to innovate and grow by connecting the student and research knowledge and facilities of the university and enabling an innovation ecosystem that solves global challenges for a better future.

Her portfolio includes the Surrey Research Park, Enterprise Programmes, Student Enterprise and SETsquared Surrey, an onsite incubator where she manages a collection of SME support programmes supporting over 60 companies, including the S100 Angel investment Club.

Megan has extensive commercial and entrepreneurial experience and has recently opened the Dryden Enterprise Centre which houses start-up, high growth and innovation driven SMEs, University spinouts, student and graduate businesses.

Megan’s work spans curriculum, extra curriculum, start-up, growth and scaling businesses, investment and placemaking, and over the years has worked with the British Council and NESTA across developing countries to support entrepreneurs and government agencies to understand the importance of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the growth of local economies.

She has recently taken up the positions of Vice President of Enterprise Educators UK working for national and international members to drive change in enterprise education and as Vice Chair of the Nottingham Business Improvement District to support the local economic development agenda.