SAGA, a company that has become the leading provider of products and services for people over the age of 65, recently engaged with the University’s Hub for Innovation & enterprise through its #InnovateIT competition via its #DigitalReboot programme, supported by Santander Universities.

A launch event was held on 13 February where Saga colleagues gave an overview of the business and the challenge at hand.  Hub Business Advisor, Paul Swaddle OBE of Pocket APP, gave an insight into how tech is currently developing and how it’s being adopted by industry at present.

They offered a £600 prize to the student individual or team who could come up with the most innovative way of using the tech of tomorrow.Students were then given 23 days to think, mind map and research their selected tech.

On 27 March, judges Emily Gardener, Leanne Brown and Simon Godfrey of SAGA, Paul Swaddle of Pocket APP and Kevin Bardwell of Santander Universities,  gathered in the Canterbury Innovation Centre, ready to make the final judgement.The three finalists teams included Hazim Abdusada & Huma Razzaq, Rebecca Humphries and Teniola Etti, who were equipped with a ten-minute pitch waited for their chance to convince the judges.

All the finalists were calm and confident and did exceedingly well at presenting their ideas. What was clear, after the pitches, was that the judges had a hard decision to make. The winner of the £600 of Amazon Vouchers was Teniola Etti, whose idea had convinced the judges that his tech was credible, possible and the most impactful submission. The runner-ups were Huma and Hazim and Rebecca.

Our thanks to the work of the finalists, SAGA, Santander Universities and the University of Kent.