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THE REAL 11
2011 DEAL
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AT THE HEART OF INNOVATION IN CAMBRIDGE & THE EAST OF ENGLAND
March 10-17, 2011 no.622 65p
BUSINESSWEEKLY
Games joystick
concept to save
lives on front line
by Tony Quested joystick parts manufacture.
The defence customer concerned has
Computer game technology is being emulated reached the next stage of a ramp-up strategy
to help save young soldiers’ lives in the front and Shearline will be increasing production by
line. 50 per cent on these items to support the sales
PlayStation-style joysticks are being growth.
developed for machine gunners to be located Maltby said: “This is a highly controlled
inside military vehicles and essential components production process and Shearline was able to
for them are set to be made by Cambridgeshire offer a design for manufacture service on
engineering company, Shearline. several components that helped reduce
Ely-based Shearline already makes a highly production costs on this product.”
specialist kit of parts for a UK defence Shearline, through its ShearXL division, is
customer that is key to the new dual-option also set to cash in on the motorsport sector
joystick design. following a shrewd investment last year from
Gunners can either use the control like a chairman, owner and founder David
traditional joystick or utilise the computer Littlechild.
games option that will come second nature to He was forced to use part of his pension
younger soldiers weaned on PlayStation and fund and his daughter’s savings to leverage
perhaps games like Activision’s ‘Call of Duty’ Santander money and buy the assets of F1
where the returned fire doesn’t prove fatal. supply chain stalwart Last Engineering from
Shearline’s Technical and Commercial the administrator when his own bank turned
director, Charles Maltby, told Business Weekly: down the deal.
“Using the advanced technology, machine The bank concerned may care to send for
gunners don’t have to stick their head out of the sick bag: Work in the ShearXL division has
the vehicle. now reached manpower capacity and
“It’s a fantastic, highly innovative idea to additional machinists are being sought to
use PlayStation-type technology because of the support the high level of motorsports
young age of so many of our troops going to customer interest in the facility.
the front line in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It Maltby said: “We’re sending a global ‘Come
will be familiar to them and it could save their and Join us’ message to high calibre millers
lives.” wherever they are based to come and join us as
Shearline dispatches the kits in bespoke we have spare machine capacity, orders in the
electrostatic packs which go straight into the books and could expand this work on state-of-
client’s clean room for assembly. the-art gearboxes even further.
“Eventually Shearline hopes to offer “It is a very exciting opportunity for the
further added value and have its own in-house company.”
clean room to offer a turnkey service for the >>> Continued on page 27 Pictures and reactions from the inaugural Cambridge Startup Weekend – Pages 20-21

2. 20 BUSINESSWEEKLY March 10-17, 2011
THE REAL DEAL www.businessweekly.co.uk
CAMBRIDGE STARTUP WEEKEND: Business Weeklyʼs inside track on a successful inaugural event at St Johnʼs Innovation Centre
Entrepreneurs want to
see more start-up
hothousing in future
Cambridge entrepreneurs involved in the
inaugural Cambridge Startup Weekend want to Winnersʼ profiles
see a legacy put in place that leverages the ideas
and energy generated by such hothousing events. OVERALL: Lessonista
Judges, speakers and mentors emerged from An application that allows English literature
the intensive 54-hour event inspired by the input teachers to share resources with their colleagues
of the ‘pitchers.’ across the country simply and easily
Billy Boyle, co-founder of Owlstone Nanotech (http://www.lessonista.com/).
in Cambridge and a keynote speaker said: “I
thought it was a great event; we should definitely HEALTH: Rosedene
be doing more of this type of thing. I spoke about An online video application that links trained
the need to learn quickly and adapt during the nurses to patients across the world, without them
start-up phase; the journey is long so get ready needing to go into hospital.
for the slog.”
One of the judges, Allan MacLean of Amdeo WIRELESS/MOBILE: CPR Volunteers
Ltd, added: “I was impressed by the range of ideas A mobile application, it uses ambulance dispatch
presented and how much they developed over the data to alert registered, trained CPR volunteers
weekend. Maybe not ‘man on the moon’, but lots when someone near them calls in with a
of cool stuff that clearly got people engaged and cardiopulmonary emergency through an app on
has to be good for moving UK plc forward.” their phone. The app also shows them where the
Another keynote speaker, Dr Shai Vyakarnam, nearest equipment (such as defibrillators) is, and
director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial aims to save lives (http://cprvolunteers.com/).
Learning at Cambridge University, was sufficiently
enthused to offer Judge Business School as a COMMUNITY: Belongingsfinder.org
venue for a similar event in future. A humanitarian app created in response to the
Business Weekly, a gold sponsor of the event, Japanese earthquake, it aims to re-unite victims
backed the wireless category. Five of the 17 with their cherished possessions. Finders simply
pitching groups had a clear wireless component photograph and upload items that they find into
and a few others had some wireless relevance. a searchable database. In Japan handing in lost
Kevin Coleman of Cambridge Wireless member property is central to life and culture (in one year
company Alliantus acted as a mentor for the over $21m in cash is handed into Tokyo lost
wireless entries. property offices) and this app (in Japanese and
The wireless prize went to a group – CPR English) aims to help by putting the process
Volunteers – led by Bonnie Cotier that developed online (http://www.belongingsfinder.org/).
an application to help get a qualified volunteer to
a heart attack victim as rapidly as possible to WILDCARD PRIZE: Sonnet
administer CPR. The other team members were An iphone application, it allows you to compose
Edwin Hayward, James Shepherd, Saqib Shaikh and send love letters that will delight your loved
and James Browne. ones. It has been submitted to the iTunes App
MacLean said: “They were a particularly Store and should be on sale shortly
interesting team as they started on Friday evening (http://twitter.com/#%21/sonnetapp).
focusing on an application to get missing persons
into the system as rapidly as possible.
“On Saturday during discussion with mentors
and exploration of the domain they discovered encouragement, moral and financial support from brainstorming and pitching ideas. Social Enterprise’ award – was conceived to allow
that rapid response to heart attacks was very high government for our inspirational young people.” Overall winner was Lessonista whose pitch victims of this week’s natural disaster in North-
priority in the new government initiative on The Startup Weekend finished at St John’s was an online facility to provide lesson-sharing East Japan and related areas to report their lost
healthcare so decided to change focus around Innovation Centre on Sunday night (March 13) plans for English Literature teachers. objects and upload images of found personal
midday Saturday. after a marathon 54 hours of mentoring, Belongingsfinder.com – which won the ‘Best belongings. As soon as the website finds
“They did an incredible amount of work to matches of lost and found requests people are
pull together a credible demonstration of the connected to help recover their losses.
concept in not much more than 24 hours. Overall Rosedene Video Care won the Best
a great example of how tight time pressure can Healthcare prize. Sonnet and Touch Paperwork
get things done – and of course what the startup were other finalists.
weekend format can do.” All the pitching groups were given a rousing
The real ‘prize’ for the group may be yet to start by messages of goodwill – and sound advice
come. They are keen to continue developing the – from Professor Barrell, Billy Boyle, Jamie
idea and Cambridge Wireless has already offered Urquhart of Pond Ventures and Dr Vyakarnam.
help and encouragement to see if the idea can be
moved from pilot to scale. Business Weekly will
also provide publicity to the company.
Cambridge Wireless chief executive, Dr Soraya
Jones, is inviting the group to key events the
company is running over the next few months – a
location special interest group (SIG) event on
March 23 and a healthcare SIG event on May 19.
Healthcare also figured large in the Startup
Weekend thanks to the backing of young
company Cambridge Healthcare, whose CEO
Dawson King was a judge.
Inspiring
The company’s chairman and serial healthcare
pioneer, Professor Alan Barrell – one of the keynote
speakers – praised the organisers and the event
sponsors, including Business Weekly – for
encouraging budding entrepreneurship.
He said: “The Cambridge Startup Weekend
was wonderful – inspiring. But what a pity that
nobody from Government – not even locals MPs –
was there over the three days of the event to see
the wonder of these young people who have
started or are starting businesses. We need more Photographs by Alan Bennett ‒ Media Imaging Solutions www.mediaimagingsolutions.com, tel: 0781 499 4934

3. BUSINESSWEEKLY March 10-17, 2011 21
www.businessweekly.co.uk THE REAL DEAL
Dr Vyakarnam urged a little sang-froid amid
the excitement of innovation and said start-ups
had to run on something a lot more substantial
than adrenaline. He said young companies
needed to be more cash conscious earlier in their
life cycles. Cashflow was vital to sustain even the
youngest of businesses, he said.
Red Gate Software was platinum sponsor for
the event, into which the organisers – James
Digby, Mauro Ciaccio, Chris Measures and Bonnie
Cotier poured hearts and souls.
The judging panel that gave so much of their
time and enthusiasm free of charge was led by
Neil Davidson of Red Gate. He was joined by
serial entrepreneur Jack Lang, representing Judge
Business School, Paul Smith (Eventility), Dawson
King (Cambridge Healthcare), Cambridge angel
investor Peter Cowley and Allan MacLean of
Amdeo Ltd.
The hardworking mentors who also gave up
their weekend R & R to nurture the raw ideas into
a presentable format were: Paul Walsh (CEO,
Cognidox), Robin Little (Associate, Beer &
Partners), Kevin Coleman (Alliantus Ltd),
Emmanuel Carraud (Magic Solver), Alistair
Paterson (Marketing Consultant), Tony Short
(Jasper Apps), Jo Vertigan (Obidos Consulting),
Eric Swain (Spice), Chris Arnold (Percollate), Steve
O’Connor (Airsource Ltd), Ronnie Barker (The
Agile Workshop), Aamir Butt (United Lane),
Simon Kingston (Kolila Consulting Ltd), Jeremy
Parsons (Red Gate), and Nick Barker (Aware
Monitoring).
"As organisers, we were amazed by the
wide range of ideas, the level of
presentations and the commitment
shown by all the teams. The mentors,
speakers and judges were also very
impressed. We are really happy to have
created such an event in Cambridge. For
Cambridge to flourish as an innovation
hotspot, I believe events like this are
essential to stimulating and promoting
the discovery of new software startups. I
would again like to thank all of our
sponsors, and especially Red Gate,
Business Weekly and Cambridge
Healthcare for making the event
possible."
Mauro Ciaccio (Founder of event organiser,
CamTechNet)
The event organisers have decided to ringfence their share of proceeds from Cambridge Startup Weekend to
facilitate other activities to promote tech startups in Cambridge so the event can create a legacy to build on.
http://www.camtechnet.info/