AI.Speech is a high-tech start-up focusing on state-of-the-art speech recognition and analysis technology to offer innovative spoken language learning/training applications. Driven by globalization and China's fast growing influence, interests in the Chinese Mandarin language have grown into a big market growing at unprecedented rates. However, needs for effective and efficient spoken Chinese learning/training solutions remain largely unmet. AI.Speech offers customizable intelligent interactive spoken Chinese language software system for educational institutions, publishers and developers with Chinese program, as well as PC software for individual learners. Compared to existing services/products in the market, AI.Speech sets a new standard for interaction, assessment, tone, instructions, cost and availability via technological leadership. AI.Speech will form an IPR strategy and build on development team in China to achieve sustainable edge. AI.Speech will diversify into areas such as other spoken language market, hardware, etc. to best exploit the technology and deliver values for both industry and consumers.

More than one-third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis (TB), a disease that kills over 2 million people annually. Improved diagnostics are desperately needed to combat this growing epidemic. AutoTB plans to create a device to automate sputum microscopy, which will decrease analysis time, increase sensitivity and eliminate the human error present in current procedures, while integrating into the existing infrastructure and remaining inexpensive and accessible to developing countries. The medical and economic benefits of this device will provide a competitive advantage over existing technologies and make it very marketable to non governmental organizations (NGOs) for both rural and urban clinics in developing countries. Furthermore, due to the inexpensive nature of the device, users will purchase replacement devices rather than pursue maintenance options, providing long-term sustainability for AutoTB's sales and profits.

Bamfur's mission is to provide sustainable textile products, with specialization in bamboo, to its client base. The goal is threefold: promote sustainability-driven consumer shopping through the use of bamboo product options, contribute to the fair employment of people in less economically developed countries, and do our part to push the movement in global sustainable development. When manufactured in a sustainable manner, bamboo is one of the most environmentally friendly plants available for textile production. Bamboo is a carbon sink, is the fastest growing plant in the world with a growth rate of up to one meter or more per day, and is sustained by rain-fed water.

Painful menstruation, or primary dysmenorrhoea is the most common complaint received by gynaecologists and affects approximately 40-70%of women 10% of whom are incapacitated for up to three days. In about 5-15% of affected women, the discomfort interferes with everyday activities. Fortunately, most women suffering from dysmenorrhoea experience decreased pain when treated with Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory drugs with reports of improvement ranging from 64-100% . Medicines are taken at 4-6 hour intervals during menstruation to combat the debilitating, spasmodic pain. BeFree! aims to develop, produce and commercialize a tampon that releases a combination of local and systemic acting drugs over time. The combination product BeFree! not only provides faster pain relief, but also is much more convenient than the products currently available on the market.

Carta Mea's vision is the democritisation and globalisation of electronic medical records, facilitating the move towards the empowered patient by providing a web based repository for data, together with supporting tools to enhance their ability to manage their condition. Connecting for Health (CfH), the UK's National Programme for IT, has had much publicised difficulties, with some projects 8 years behind schedule which has forced it to refocus on core enablement, standards and infrastructure. Carta Mea's focus is on discrete areas where we believe we can rapidly impact on patient and health professional experience.

CoolWind has developed a low-cost grid-connected micro wind turbine for domestic applications. The plug-and-play product offers significant reduction in capital costs compared to its existing competitors, making micro wind far more affordable to customers. Apart from being environmentally friendly and reducing the carbon footprint, the payback period for the CoolWind turbine is expected to be very attractive to capture a large untapped market base.

Companies are constantly looking for new marketing strategies to successfully promote products and brands. EatMe!TM Marketing has recognised a novel use for edible technology in this area and plans to pioneer the area of gastroadvertisingTM: the concept of exploiting popular food items for advertising purposes. The company is developing an edible polymer compound with which adverts can be applied directly to food. EatMe!TM Marketing aims to target the sports market initially and then expand into other food advertising and promotional areas.

GreenPB is a spin off from Coventry University committed to commercialize and promote a patented low emission technology for recovery of lead from battery paste. GreenPB's technology features an 80% percent reduction in energy consumption and elimination of SOx emission when compared to current industry standard. The combination of both will reduce recycling costs by over 20% whilst enabling economical recycling even at a small scale. Our target will be recovery of material currently inaccessible by conventional technologies in order to reduce pollution due to dumping and generate income for recyclers and affected communities.

Rumour has it that Google uses an internal marketplace for ideas in its innovation process. Other companies have shown interest in emulating this model. We license a software platform to large companies looking to open up their innovation pipelines using mass collaboration.

English is the lingua franca of our increasingly interconnected world. It dominates international business, communications, entertainment, science and diplomacy. Koreans spend £7.5 billion annually on private English education, but consistently underperform at international English assessments. Ineffective teaching methods and a lack of speaking opportunities have created a market need that existing companies have failed to address adequately. Language-Society (LS) offers an integrated web-based solution that allows Koreans to practice their English with native speakers. The service acts as an intermediary that matches Koreans to native speakers who wish to give English tutorials in exchange for payment from the Korean learners.

Microantenna is a wireless technology spin-off from the University of Coventry. The company has developed a disruptive microantenna which can transmit and receive radio waves over a very broad frequency range in the radio frequency spectrum. The device of micrometric dimensions is smaller than the smallest antenna currently available in the market by a factor of 100. It can also be integrated with semiconductor components on a chip which has not been possible so far. Its low power consumption, high sensitivity and its compatibility with existing fabrication processes make it a strong candidate for the market.

We are launching a new kind of online news website. Our starting point is the observation that significant opportunities are emerging from the changes in the pattern of mass media consumption. The market is moving away from the 'one-size fits all' model towards a model that prizes personalisation and customisation. In a sense the media industry is catching up with other consumer industries. Our news website will be a community based online newspaper where the individual user or a group can pick and mix content from external sources, and write their own stories in multimedia formats (audio/video/photo).

Cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer in the developed world. To diagnose and treat this effectively, doctors use non-invasive and portable ambulatory blood pressure monitoring devices (ABPMs). However current devices are bulky, noisy, cause discomfort, inconvenience and stigmatise the wearer. Our device fits neatly onto a plaster incorporating piezoelectric sensors. It monitors blood pressure more accurately than the existing market standard, at a fraction of the cost per unit, allowing more patients to be monitored more easily.

PowerSilicon Technology is a young spin-out from the University of Coventry founded by scholars with a wealth of technology expertise and entrepreneurial spirit. Being a fabless design house dedicated to power semiconductors and controllers, PowerSilicon is a green idea factory. We aim to produce green innovations and energy-saving solutions for electrical energy conversions, in particular renewable energy systems such as wind energy and hybrid vehicles, based on pioneering technologies, creativity and expert craftsmanship. After a decade of research at Coventry, the founding team boasts state-of-the-art technologies and extensive know-how in power semiconductor design and control, holding one patent and three pending patents. The lead product, Active Voltage Controller, has been successfully developed to the point of commercial exploitation and approved to have superior features. Our ultimate goal is to actively participate in the power semiconductor industry and commit to the global environment and energy saving.

Publispana's vision is to improve transparency, control and quality of Internet advertising in the Hispanic market worth $1.1 billion (2007). Publispana's competitive advantages: - Unique team experience covering over 1,000 website projects and 60 years of Internet experience. - Valuable domain assets worth â,¬6-12m, to start building our network of websites. - Website growth methodology - applied in practice leads to a monthly growth of 20-35% search engine traffic. - High performance products that have a 84% better sales performance than search engine traffic. In year 5, Publispana will make a profit of â,¬111m, with an initial investment of â,¬2m.

RapidDetect is a quick, painless and accurate 24-hour patch to determine the immunogenic response to common diseases contracted while travelling. Vaccines for diseases such as Japanese Encephalitis, Hepatitis B, Rabies and Tick Borne Encephalitis are often essential when travelling to certain areas of the world. However, these vaccines are costly, require multiple doses over long periods of time and frequently require boosting. RapidDetect provides assurance to travellers, it is reassuring for those who cannot remember what or when previous travel vaccines were taken, is safer as it illustrates whether your immunogenic resistance is sufficient, and it prevents the need for unnecessary costly booster shots. There are also opportunities to expand RapidDetect's products into allergenic response tests.

Rejuvinate aims to sell products to regain the normal functioning of the damaged nerve tissues. Specifically, we intend to focus on the presently untreatable cases of two types of neuronal injuries - peripheral and spinal. Adult olfactory stem cells would be extracted from the patient and multiplied as well as differentiated in-vitro. They will further be incorporated into appropriate biomaterial scaffold and then implanted back into the patient to restore the sensory and mobility function. Rejuvinate will achieve the end point of nerve clinical therapy by reversing the process of tissue damage and fulfilling the medical needs in this field.

Rescent is an innovative technology that utilises a novel vesicle-polymer gel technology to release a perfume or cologne over a period of several hours. When the original area of application is rubbed gently, the generated shear stresses disrupt the vesicle system, freeing fragrance molecules and delivering a fresh burst of fragrance. By licensing this technology to companies that are competitively placed within the global fragrance market, Rescent aims to make a significant turnover within three to five years. The Rescent technology platform provides a unique and extremely marketable advantage in a market dominated by customer desire for technological innovation.

Scotch India would like to exploit the growing premium and super-premium market for whisky in India, resulting from the increasing affluence of the Indian market that has accompanied the booming Indian economy. The company's mission is to become the one source for everything Scotch in the Indian whisky market.

The lighting environment during skiing can be particularly difficult, involving highly reflective snow, bright sunshine, rapid changes from bright light to shadow, and the focus of the skier directed to a narrow area of the visual field. Existing ski goggles, whilst a large and growing high-margin market, poorly satisfy the needs of skiers. We propose ski-goggles with opacity adjusted by simply moving the head in specific gestures, dramatically improving utility for a small increase in manufacturing cost. The technology for this product exists and is proven in multiple markets, it is simply a novel combination directed to a specific application.

Sonnet Models uses Web 2.0 technology to revolutionise the modelling industry. The team reached the final of the 2008 CUE £5k Challenge and won the 2008 Downing Enterprise Business Plan Competition. Team Members are: Mike Chepkin (CEO), Colin Howe (CTO), João Pereira & Gonçalo Perdigão

TerraNova will become the leading supplier of technology solutions to this important global industry, with ambitions to expand into agriculture and environmental technologies, leveraging its unique clean solution, based upon a proprietary multidimensional computer model that delivers economic significant insights which will result in increases in quality, quantity and reliability of production and reductions in expensive manpower, natural resources and uncertainty.

'Intelligent Books' are a new product in the online learning space, that simplifies the experience for teachers and students alike, and also makes many new kinds of assessment and assistance possible that were not possible before. They are as simple to use as paper textbooks, but use 'Web 2.0' techniques to allow students, tutors, and collaborating lecturers to add their own material, and they can reuse material from the wider Internet. They also make it easy to include much richer exercises with more detailed feedback, and can even use machine reasoning to understand students' working and not just their answer. theIntelligentBook.com hosts the books, so there are no installation costs. We can even automatically slice your existing lecture notes to produce an Intelligent Book from them. They are a low-cost zero-effort solution to providing highly interactive teaching materials. And they are so much better than the dusty textbook.

Varicose veins are dilated veins on the legs underneath the skin surface caused by impaired vein valve function. This condition is common and increases with age. Complications include ulceration, clot formation and skin eczema. Current treatments are invasive, expensive, can be performed only by physicians and cause side-effects. Consequently 98% of patients do not receive treatment. Veinbay will offer efficient, non-invasive, convenient and cost-effective treatment for varicose veins. Transdermal patches will deliver controlled release of drug combinations to the diseased veins and treat the condition. The superior qualities of Veinbay will make it a treatment of choice for varicose veins.

Wopine is a social networking website for expressing and finding opinions. Unlike other review-sites, users have complete freedom to add new information and to decide who may see it. By linking to other social networking sites, Wopine hopes to quickly expand and become a global source of useful information.