Blog: Converge Challenge Business Surgery 2016

By Garry Boyle

The stunning St Leonard's Hall at Edinburgh University was the scene of the 2016 Converge Challenge Kickstart and Social Enterprise 1-2-1 Business Surgeries yesterday, and I was more than happy to take part representing HeadSpace Design. The day was an excellent opportunity receive support from a variety of Converge partners, with extensive years of professional practice and enterprise experience. Additionally, it was a pleasure to meet some great young entrepreneurs with pioneering new social enterprise ideas as well as those with early stage technology ideas.

Specifically, I sat down with four organisations who offered advice on a variety of key aspects of the business. Firstly, I spoke to Fearsome, a well established product development company based in Glasgow, who provided a unique insight into the fundamental factors of product development. I was very enthused to hear the perspective of an organisation who are rooted in perpetual innovation, which are values we absolutely share. Next, we spoke to Emma Siegel and Colin Malone of Mazars, a financial services organisation who have a breadth of experience in various finance and funding areas.

Then, I met Julie Nixon of Morton Fraser legal, a former life scientist who has worked in a research assistant capacity at the University of Edinburgh and Harvard. Julie has a wonderful depth of knowledge and experience particularly in the key area of commercialisation of technologies.

My last meeting was with Olga Kozlova, one of the directors at the Converge Challenge. Over the years the Converge Challenge has become a great vehicle for company creation, specifically out of the academic world and this is in no small part down to the hard work and experience of the Converge team.
 

Finally, there was a very interesting talk given by Hannah Robertson of the Royal Society of Edinburgh who gave an insight into the RSE Enterprise Fellowship and the process of becoming a fellow. Overall, it was a thoroughly beneficial day with some fantastic experts giving valuable feedback that we will certainly consider and take on board going forward. Of course, before leaving however, I just had to accept the invitation of a photo opportunity for social media.
 

If you are thinking about starting a business or commercialising a technology and you're also in the Scottish University academic system (either as a student or academic) we would thoroughly recommend exploring the various avenues of support offered by the Converge Challenge.

Converge Challenge website: www.convergechallenge.com/

Twitter: @ConvergeC