Unearthing tomorrow's engineering entrepreneurs

Targeted at 16 to 25 year olds, the Launchpad competition has been developed to encourage young people to think about how their innovations might be developed into fully-fledged, vibrant businesses.

The winner will receive the prestigious JC Gammon Award which includes  £15,000 to help kick-start their business, support from the Royal Academy on routes to securing investment, and membership of the Royal Academy’s Enterprise Hub, an initiative that sees some of the UK’s leading technology entrepreneurs pledge their time to mentor the country’s most promising start-ups and SMEs.

More than 100 volunteer mentors, who are Fellows of the Academy, have pledged their time to the Hub including well-known names such as Dr Mike Lynch FREng, Co-Founder of Autonomy and Founder of Invoke, and Sir Robin Saxby FREng, former Founding Chief Executive and Chairman of ARM.

Commenting on the new competition, Arnoud Jullens, Head of Enterprise at the RAEng said: ‘The future success of the UK’s economy is dependent on investment in innovation today, and developing relevant skills in the next generation of technology entrepreneurs.’