Michael and Gregor are the brains behind a new lip-synch technology for video games, which automatically generates high-quality facial animations directly from recorded speech. You can see a cool video demo of their technology on their website.

Fourty-seven universities from across the UK were invited to nominate student-led companies for the Santander awards; from these, ten finalists were chosen to pitch to a panel of judges in London. Speech Graphics were the only Scottish company to make the finals.

Since incorporating late last year, Speech Graphics has also won a John Logie Baird award for innovation, and were one of eight companies selected to deliver live investor pitches at Engage Invest Exploit (see their 60 second version of that pitch).

Here’s a roundup of the other startups that caught Santander’s attention:

Jottify is an “online community which allows people to share, discuss and sell anything they have written.” Fame and fortune appear to have caught founder Jack Lennox off-guard (the Jottify website simply says “Jottify: coming soon”), but if that’s all you need to commit, it is possible become a Facebook fan.

Guitar Lesson Lounge, founded by Guillaume Devinat, aims “to create the best video guitar lessons online.” You have to sign up to access the videos, but you can try out the following for free:

• three video guitar lessons including notes and chord charts
• a beginner’s guide to guitar fret hand technique
• your personal song lesson collection
• future free guitar lessons.

One2One Medicine, founded by Grant Milne, provides “support and guidance for future doctors from school to graduation.” Amongst other things, One2One have released their own app on iPhone and Android, which claims to help prospective doctors study for their exams. They’ve gone with an expansion pack model, where the initial content is free, but the really useful stuff costs £1.79. Fortunately, extensive market research on my part reveals that this is a price point most prospective doctors can afford.

Radfan Heatwave, founded by Simon Barker and Roland Glancy, produces “a more efficient central heating product to reduce bills and energy waste.” What more can you say?

The Fold is a new clothing brand for the “professionally chic” woman. I wish I could be professionally chic, but unfortunately, my chic-ness just don’t pay the bills. Co-founders Cheryl Mainland and Polly Fowler have developed an attractive first collection of womenswear, which ranges from black to dark navy in colour, and is accentuated by £95 belts. Is this why London is so expensive?

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I want to draw your attention to PepsiCo10.  PepsiCo10 is a programme designed to discover and support new digital technology innovations. Click here if you would like to see the video  http://www.pepsico10.com/

We are looking for the best ten emerging and innovative technology companies across Europe to win the chance to work with PepsiCo in the UK whilst receiving the support and guidance from Highland Capital Partners, OMD and PepsiCo brand managers.

This is a unique opportunity led by one of the world’s best consumer brands to help accelerate early-stage businesses:

• The chosen ten companies are guaranteed a partnership with a brand(s) from PepsiCo’s portfolio such as Walkers Crisps, Pepsi Max and Tropicana.
• PepsiCo will take no equity
• A reward of £10,000 to all ten companies.

Companies looking to enter PepsiCo10 must submit an online application at http://www.pepsico10.com Full details on entry criteria are on the website.

Many thanks to James Wood at the BioQuarter for getting in touch with us, and sorry folks for not posting this sooner – where has the time flown?! Ah c’mon who here plans more than a week ahead anyway… Details below, and feel free to brainstorm or share wacky ideas in the comments for someone to pick up on!

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Edinburgh BioQuarter is offering researchers and staff £55,000 in prize money for the best innovations leading to new medical companies being formed from scientific research.

All awards are open to research staff and PhD students at the University of Edinburgh and staff at NHS Lothian. Entries submitted must outline a business concept that delivers patient benefits in either human and/or animal medicine. This could include new drugs, diagnostic tools, software, devices or other creative products.

Prizes worth a total of £15,000 will also be awarded for the best patent, disclosure and best commercial idea from 2010. The overall winner will be expected to form a company that will be eligible for further funding through the Scottish Enterprise SMART scheme.

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And the small print (from the “How to Enter” instructions):

Those wishing to enter the BioQuarter Innovation Competition 2011 should download and complete the application form and prepare a PowerPoint presentation of no more than six slides based on the following:

1. Company Concept

2. Market Pull

3. Legal/Patent

4. Collaborators/Partners

5. Financial

6. Comparables/Competitors

Entries must be received by Lorraine Dobbs, Competition Administrator, by noon on 31 March 2011. Entries may be submitted on a memory stick, by email or on CD-ROM. The first round of winners of £1,000 each will be announced in April 2011.

Contact Lorraine Dobbs on 0131 242 9444, email Lorraine.Dobbs@ed.ac.uk

The awards for best disclosure, best patent and best commercial idea will be awarded at the discretion of the judging panel and will cover all medical patents and disclosures from the University of Edinburgh and the NHS in the period 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011. These awards will be given in June 2011 during the finals of the innovation competition.

We’re planning quite a few changes at StartupCafe, but before we do anything, we want to hear your views. We want to make sure that we make the right changes so that the blog is more useful to you.

We’ve spent a lot of thought in crafting a questionnaire, which we would really appreciate you taking 5 mins to fill in:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CZM3TWM

As an incentive, we’re giving away this awesome Speck bag ($59.95 RRP) in a prize draw for everyone that answers the survey! (http://www.speckproducts.com/a-line-netbook-ipad-bag-brown.html)

We’re going to be making the draw this Sunday morning (27th Jan Feb, 11am (Ed: sorry, got the month wrong)) so please make sure you get your answers in by then!

Kate, Jess, Hilary, Bela and Thomas
The StartupCafe team

Government-backed IC tomorrow initiative wants to kick off consumer trials of new and innovative digital services.

The UK’s Technology Strategy Board has launched a Digital Innovation Contest, which aims to distribute £200,000 of funding to 20 innovative new digital services.

The contest, organised under the TSB’s IC tomorrow scheme, plans to provide up to £10,000 to each startup chosen from the contest, for a six-month consumer trial.

It kicks off today with a call for entries, with 40 submissions then chosen for a final face-to-face judging session at the end of March. The contest focuses on sectors including music, TV/film and publishing, with mobile app developers eligible to enter.

Besides the money, the contest aims to help successful entrants work with rights from a variety of content firms, including Beggars Group, British Library, Crytek UK, EMI, Faber & Faber, Fremantle Media, Getty Images, Haymarket Media Group, IPC Media, Lionsgate, The Orchard, Sony Music, Twofour and Universal Music.

“IC tomorrow offers an unrivalled opportunity to trial consumer applications and business models and we’re now looking for the brightest digital entrepreneurs and organisations to submit their applications,” says TSB head of digital Dr Nick Appleyard.

“By breaking down the challenges associated with delivering content rich applications to the market, IC tomorrow hopes to ensure the UK continues to be a leader in technology innovation.”

Check out the full details on how to enter the Digital Innovation Contest. 

While you’re perhaps already busy playing this game with your own bank account, or an investor’s, I thought this sounded like a great challenge for friends/partners/siblings who could use a bit more excitement at work [update: students too!]. It’s open to teams of 8-12 people, so it should be good fun and sign-ups are now open – email gill.levy@fairbridge.org.uk. I’ve included the Zero to Hero flyer here for full details, so pass on some startup spirit and tell your corporate friends/partners/siblings to get involved.

If you have any wacky ideas of what to do with the money, but are lacking the time yourself, feel free to contribute thoughts below!

We are putting Scotland’s finest to the test, is your company ready to rise to the challenge and compete to see if you have the best entrepreneurs in the region?

The challenge…

If you are part of the most creative, competitive, motivated corporate team in the Scotland read on…

In a nutshell, Zero to Hero is a competitive challenge for teams of 8-12 people, in which each team is presented with £500 and tasked to turn it in to £5000 over four months. How you raise the money is entirely up to you, but we will challenge your team to be as creative as possible.  As a business challenge, to be successful your team will have to use every business skill from project management through to negotiation and influencing. The challenge provides a fantastic opportunity to build business skills, network with other local businesses and raise your company’s profile… [for more details: Zero to Hero Challenge]

About Fairbridge:

Fairbridge works with some of the hardest to reach young people aged 13-25 who are outside of education, employment or training across the UK. We support nearly 4000 young people a year to take their first steps to a positive life.

The event is free to attend with no sign ups. Hashtag is #BarcampGlasgow. Details are:

Friday, 18th June, 4.30pm – 8.30pm, at STV (Pacific Quay)

In addition, Startupcafe are leading an ‘Ignite’ style session from 7.30pm to 8.30pm.

We have 10 slots for inspiring people to share their expertise/passion/story – and we want to hear from you! We think that there is so much expertise in our communities and we want to give you a platform to share it. You can talk about anything: could be in digital marketing, lessons in creativity, exciting things in HTML5 … anything you want! You can check out the Ignite website for more examples.

The format will be 5 mins, 20 slides, each auto advancing every 15 seconds. Scared? Don’t be, check out this excellent video on How to Give an Ignite Talk.

If you have something share, then tell us about it at: http://bit.ly/9z3vhl . Closing date is midnight 8th June, we’ll notify speakers by 10th, and they should have a whole week to prepare.

Any questions – feel free to email us at kate@startupcafe.co.uk or hilary@startupcafe.co.uk!

SIE is now giving us the chance to recognise and thank the people who help make starting a business that much easier and smoother. I can think of so many worthy recipients of the following award, and encourage you to take half an hour out of your busy schedule in the next week to nominate someone who has made a difference to you. You have until 9am Monday 8th March (aka Sunday night)… I have posted the application questions below – email your answers to a.ives@sie.ac.uk.  

SIE is inviting nominations from students and staff members of Scottish Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) for the two 2009-2010 SIE Entrepreneurship Educators of the Year.  These awards of £2500 each are intended to recognize lecturers, research and enterprise staff, careers staff, or other relevant staff from Scottish HEIs who have made significant contributions to the entrepreneurship education and support of students either inside or outside the classroom.

Nominations are due by Monday March 8th at 9:00am, they will be judged by an international panel of experts in the field, and the winners will be announced at SIE’s annual Gala Awards event in Glasgow on Wednesday March 17th, along with the winners of SIE’s New Ideas Competition, New Ventures Competition, and Intern of the Year Awards.

Please email completed nomination forms to Anthony Ives, a.ives@sie.ac.uk , and direct any questions to Anthony.

YOUR NAME:

YOUR INSTITUTION:

NOMINATED CANDIDATE:

NOMINIEE’S INSTITUTION:

Please do NOT mention the candidate’s name or institution in your answers.  Also try not to give any other identifying information if possible.  Please feel free to extend your answers beyond the space allotted.

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Why do you believe this person should be recognized as one of this year’s SIE Entrepreneurship Educators of the Year?

What creative or innovative things has this person done in the design and delivery of entrepreneurship education that has made an impact on you or others?  Please give specific examples.

Why do you think this person would be good at sharing what they have learned and what they know about effective entrepreneurship education with other staff from higher education institutions?

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Plastic Logic showed off a plastic e-reader which was all the rage in show floor chatter. Did you know the company was a spinout from Cambridge University?!

It’s interesting to step back in time and watch this news announcement from 2007 when Cambridge labs were first making breakthroughs in this area. Seems they had a good vision of three years ahead, and I’m curious to see how their longer term thoughts on beaming internet straight to your contact lenses, remote controls woven into your couch fabric, or colour-changing curtains to indicate a friend’s arrival pan out.

So, how do you get your hands on some money? Apply to attend a 3-day workshop held 1st-3rd March in London, and TSB will be choosing ideas emerging from that workshop to fund. Get your workshop application in by noon on 28th January…

We would like leaders in business, academia and research and technology organisations to apply. We particularly welcome applications from designers and end-users – previous experience in the field of plastic electronics is not required – we are more interested in new ideas and insight into user requirements and – unmet needs.

Read more about the competition: http://creativeindustriesktn.org/blog/2010/01/3m-opportunity-in-plastic-electronics/

Get the brief and apply: http://www.innovateuk.org/competitions/plasticelectronicsdemonstrators.ashx