This week is wayraWeek. 30 start-up finalists will visit our UK headquarters in Slough over three days to pitch their business ideas to our panel of judges. They will also be attending business development seminars and take advantage of networking opportunities. Only 20 can make it through.
Each of the winning start-ups will receive €40,000 of funding, a state-of-the-art workspace for 9 months in our Academy in central London along with mentoring from industry leaders and access to Telefónica and investors.
So who is going to decide which start-ups will be invited to take advantage of this amazing opportunity?
Meet our 8 amazing judges:
Jason Goodman is a marketeer and angel investor with an accomplished history of turning start-ups into multimillion pound businesses. He is the founder of Tribal DDB and Albion. www.albionlondon.com
George Berkowski is the Chairman of MIT Enterprise Forum UK. He is an authority on product design and strategy, eCommerce, mCommerce, affiliate marketing and analytics. He is currently the Head of Product at HAILO – the taxi app. www.hailocab.com
Bindi Karia currently leads Silicon Valley Bank’s early stage efforts in Europe. She was previously the Venture Capital/Emerging Business lead at Microsoft UK for five years. www.svb.com
Alex van Someren is a General Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners. As an entrepreneur, Alex’s business nCipher became a world leader in IT security. He led its listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2000, raising £110m. www.amadeuscapital.com
Jeff Lynn is the founder and CEO of Seedrs, an FSA regulated online investing platform. Jeff is also the Chairman of the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) and has acted as a strategic advisor to several start-ups. www.seedrs.com
Feilim Mackle is the Sales and Service Director of Telefonica UK and our Chairman of the Judges. A board-level executive, Feilim has previously held the roles of Executive Director at AEGON UK and Managing Director of Retail Banking at RBS Group. www.telefonica.com
Bertrand Bodson is EVP, Global Digital at EMI Music, where he is responsible for leading and developing the company’s global digital strategy. Before joining EMI Music, Bertrand held positions at Boston Consulting Group and Amazon.com. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. www.emimusic.com
Inma Martinez is a world leading digital media strategist. She is currently a partner at Opus Corporate Finance LLP, a leading corporate finance advisory firm and has held executive positions at Goldman Sachs and Cable & Wireless. Inma is also a Catalyst Ambassador for UKTI. about.me/inmaculadamartinez
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