School reveals Purple Plaque to celebrate Women in Innovation Awards win
Wolverhampton Girls' High School hosted an event to celebrate their former pupil, Kate Allan, who has won the Women in Innovation Award from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, by unveiling a purple plaque in her honour on the school site.
Purple plaques are being displayed at schools across the country to recognise the achievements of the winners of the prestigious Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award. The Award also sees recipients receive £50,000 grant funding and one-to-one mentoring to scale up their businesses and bring their pioneering innovations to market.
Kate Allan is part of a network of over 200 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award winners who are developing inspiring solutions to pressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges; from multi-grip bionic arms for amputees, an AI that curbs your unhealthy cravings, and satellite data to detect long-lost archaeological sites.
Kate founded ExpHand Prosthetics in 2017 during her final year at Loughborough University where she studied Product Design Engineering. Kate was searching for a dissertation idea with a purpose. It wasn't until she met Zoey, a little girl with congenital limb-loss, that Kate realised her potential to change lives.
Using innovative 3D-printing and with Zoey in mind, Kate designed a prosthetic that can actually grow with children, unlike any other prosthetic currently available. ExpHand Prosthetics provides affordable, life-changing upper limb prosthetics that give children their independence back. Since winning her first award, Kate has gone on to receive international praise for her developments in the field of prosthetics. The ExpHand is now being used by children across the UK and internationally with an upcoming product trial in Kenya.
Kate Allan said: “It's such an encouragement to be recognised among Women in Innovation, showing that not only is there support and recognition for ExpHand Prosthetics, but also for myself as its founder. I hope it will inspire more women to start their own companies and take on new leadership roles.”
By Nancy Stapleton - Contributor
