Manufacturing specialist Get It Made has announced the launch of its 2024 grant to help encourage the next generation of women in UK engineering by taking female-led organisations to the next level.
Launched to mark International Women’s Day, the initiative has been set up to encourage and support projects being driven by female-founded or female-led engineering, design, tech and manufacturing enterprises, including start-ups. The winner will receive the benefit of Get It Made’s manufacturing expertise to help scale up production and move their business forward.
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First launched in 2022, the annual initiative is expected to attract hundreds of applicants from all over the UK in its support of female entrepreneurship in traditionally male-dominated sectors.
‘Grants such as this are so important on many levels, not least to address the bigger picture, to give a much-needed platform and voice for FemTech innovators,’ said Stiliyana Minkovska, founder and CEO of gynae health start-up Matrix, who won last year’s grant. ‘They allow women to build for women, so products like Matrix can get to the prototyping phase, thus enhancing the opportunity for gaining further visibility and bringing it a step closer to reality.
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‘The grant has enabled us to produce various prototypes to potentially distribute to multiple potential early adopters and users – specialist practitioners from OBGYNs to nurses and GPs,’ she continued. ‘Our project has the potential to not only save lives and improve outcomes for patients, but also empower females and help reduce health inequalities in women around the world. The support from Get It Made has helped us propel our business forward and take our goal one step closer, something that may not have been possible or might have been even more difficult to achieve otherwise.’
‘Through offering our state-of-the-art manufacturing services, we’re committed in supporting female-driven innovation through ground-breaking projects that have the potential to improve efficiencies and even save lives,’ said Luke Smoothy, founder of Get It Made. ‘We’ve taken a practical step to align with this year’s IWD theme, Inspire Inclusion; as a sector where women are still underrepresented, manufacturing is just one of many industries that needs to take further action and be more actively engaged in driving gender parity and raising awareness about discrimination.’
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Applications are open until 31 July. The grant, worth £5,000, is available to engineering enterprises with fewer than ten employees. More information, including details of how to apply, can be found here.