Falkirk female entrepreneur honoured in latest Women in Innovation Awards

Some 50 winners altogether have today – International Women’s Day – been honoured by the initiative aiming to boost the number of women entrepreneurs, and recognising those developing novel solutions to major social, environmental and economic challenges. Each will benefit from a £50,000 grant, one-to-one business coaching, and a suite of networking, role modelling, and training opportunities.

Monika Tomecka is a biomedical scientist and founder of UFraction8 who wants to help produce food in a more sustainable and affordable way through cellular agriculture - producing meat products through protein cells rather than from animals.

She is no stranger to awards having picked up several in recent years for her innovative work. In 2018 her company received a growth award at the Investing Women Ambition and Growth conference and last year UFraction8 secured more than £2.5 million in funding to further development of its instruments designed to bring down the cost of sustainable food systems and biology-based medical treatments.

Other Scottish winners were Divia Bhatnagar, from Edinburgh, co-founder of Medical Intelligence Group, who has developed a 3D foot scanner to prevent and monitor life-threatening diabetic foot ulcers from a patient’s home, and Iris Quasar Grunwald, from Newport-on-Tay, co-founder of Nvention, who has designed a novel flow sensor device that regulates and measures the flow of liquid and gases in pipes and tubes.

Also on the list are Lucy Fisher, from Aberdeen, founder of Knit It, who is aiming to inspire a new digital-savvy generation of knitters through her Knit It platform; and Tiffany Wood, from Edinburgh, who has developed a technological device, Dyneval, that accurately evaluates the semen quality of livestock in dairy farms.

Now in its sixth year, the competition drew a record number of 920 applications from women business leaders, 10 per cent up from last year, reflecting the growing number of women-led businesses in the UK.

UK Government Minister for Scotland Malcolm Offord said: “It’s fantastic to see such strong representation from Scottish entrepreneurs among today’s winners. Many congratulations to all [of them], and I look forward to seeing these concepts develop through the support they will now receive.”