Debbie Wake_ Women in Innovation Award

"I am delighted to submit an application for the Women in Innovation Awards. I am a medical doctor/ academic by training, and driven by a passion to 'make a difference'. I hold a strong belief that technology can empower people and improve lives, and have scaled the award winning MyDiabetesMyWay system over 13 years (as clinical lead), to be the only self-management platform in the world to be rolled out nationally (in Scotland) with 40,000 registrants. I have co-founded MyWay Digital Health Ltd (spin out of the University of Dundee), and in 20 months as CEO have 18 employees and secured around £3m in innovation funding, including Innovate UK i) SBRI awards (\> £1m), a ii) Digital Health Catalyst;£1m AI in diabetes care (MyDiabetesIQ) project, iii) NHS Test Bed -NHS Greater Manchester (£400k) and iv) secured NHS England commercial contracts. I believe I have excellent leadership potential and a vehicle to deliver impact through innovation

This application aligns perfectly with the Industrial Grand Challenges around Data and Artificial Intelligence and also to some extend with the Ageing Population strand. I aspire to scale MWDH to be a global leader in data-driven healthcare. In this application, I describe our aspirations to use data and AI to deliver life saving and cost saving solutions for chronic disease management starting with diabetes. This award will give a cash injection supporting the early release and testing of important automated data driven decision support functionality for our MyDiabetesMyWay platform. This will enable us to maintain a competitor advantage. This award will also bring important credibility to the business and support for growth and internationalisation to enable us to reach other market particularly those with very high prevalence of diabetes including the Middle East and US.

I am also passionate about enabling women in STEM industries to reach their true potential through role modelling opportunities and keen to enhance my own ongoing learning through the services provided by Innovate Uk and partners."