i4 Product Design is delighted to announce that it will be continuing its partnership into 2021 with Converge — the UK’s leading company creation programme for staff, students and recent graduates of Scottish Universities. Since its launch in 2011, the entrepreneurial development programme has trained 400+ entrepreneurs and helped to create 200+ companies with an unusually high survival rate of 80%. In turn, Converge alumni companies have gone on to create over 500 high-value jobs, and secured more than £130m in follow-on funding, positively impacting the Scottish economy.
In 2020, i4pd provided the Converge programme with £25,000 worth of support including free product design consultancy services and technical advice to approximately 90 developing businesses. The main recipients of this support included the winners of the 2020 competition; The Aquaponics Garden, Connex Solar, Earth Blox, Flux Solutions, Ten Bio, and Yaldi Games, each of which have already or will receive support throughout their product design journey into 2021. So far the support provided has been wide ranging including logo design, animation, UX and complex mechanism designs.
“My experience working in partnership with Converge has been energising so far. We always had the desire to do something like Converge and this partnership offers us the perfect platform to support the burgeoning entrepreneur environment in Scotland - when the opportunity for us to collaborate again came up it was an easy decision.”
Tristan Elliott, i4pd's Business Development Director
Converge trains around 90 entrepreneurs every year — 30 in its 'KickStart' category and approximately 60 in its more advanced divisions. Each participant receives intensive business training and pitch coaching and is asked to attend a Business Masterclass that will again be delivered with i4pd next year. This year’s topic was on 'Remote Product Design & Development'.
“Turning great ideas into successful products is no easy task and takes great experience and skill – something that i4 has in abundance. For Converge participants embarking on this journey, knowing they can access the support, expertise and knowledge of one of the UK’s leading design development companies, is a real boon. As you can imagine, we are absolutely over the moon to be renewing our partnership with i4 and can’t wait to see what 2021 brings!”
Claudia Cavalluzzo, Director of Converge
2021 marks the 11th year of the Converge programme, and i4 has proudly supported past winners Shot Scope, Novosound, Recoil Kneepads, Current Health, WheelAir, and alumni Dyneval, Hydro2go and Biotrinity, to name but a few.
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