Catalyst Fund Initiative
Homerton Changemakers is dedicated to equipping young individuals with essential life-skills, tools and resources to be able to make real and positive change in the world.
Now in its third year, the Changemaker Catalyst Fund Initiative continues to ignite change. Homerton students who envision enterprises, products, or initiatives geared towards amplifying public good and societal impact were provided with an exceptional opportunity to secure up to £2,000 in Catalyst funding, complemented by hands-on mentoring from experienced entrepreneurs and leaders through industry partner Cambridge Wireless and from Homerton’s own alumni community.
The groups were encouraged to explore the possibility of using technology to achieve their aims. From numerous exceptional entries, six winning groups were selected. From healthcare innovations to projects that strive to improve education and equality, the students and partners from these winning teams have started truly impactful and innovative change-making projects.
Homerton Changemakers is grateful to Cambridge Wireless for their continuing support of this project, TTP and ARU for sponsoring two of the Catalyst Fund prizes and again to TTP for being the key sponsor for the showcase event taking place on Thursday 3rd October 2024.
Read more about the winning groups below.
The 2024 Changemakers Catalyst Fund Winning Teams
CulturaVerse
Lead Applicant: Jason Zhanfeng Si (MBA)
CulturaVerse is a platform that helps demystify the cultural barriers that a lot of people face while representing or understanding their different people’s identities throughout the globe. Due to the current media, the portrayal of certain ethnic groups or cultures has been extremely villainised and has been a means to drive a certain narrative. This leaves a lot of common people to be villainised for a crime they never committed.
We provide a platform to celebrate the positive impact these people and their culture have and how it can be a means to learn more about them and celebrate the unity in diversity. CulturaVerse is a platform that leverages the use of the current generation of AI models to provide a quick and easy way to represent these cultures on a global scale.
Team: Mohd Sadiq. Homerton Alumnus, Jannathul Chowdhury. Homerton PhD Student
Regenerate Bone Broth
Lead Applicant: Merlin Ohta, Natural Sciences (Year 1)
At Regenerate, our mission is to help people increase their nutritional intake with our bone broth - a nutritious liquid made by simmering bones and connective tissue, rich in protein, collagen, and minerals that promote gut health and overall wellness. We aim to bring a fresh and flavorful bone broth to the market.
Our primary challenge lies in eliminating the need for shelf-life extending preservatives. This commitment is crucial to us because it ensures our bone broth remains a no-nonsense, nutrient-rich food that tastes as good as homemade bone broth.
Gone are the days of being deterred by long simmering times. We are dedicated to helping as many people as possible embrace traditional wellness foods by providing them with access to high-quality products.
Team: Uzair Ahmed, (ARU, Computer Science) Technical support and website/application development, Danielle Whitelock, (ARU, Business with Human Resource Management) Business development and marketing
SparkBots
Lead Applicant: Kate Lucas, Manufacturing Engineering (Year 3)
SparkBots aims to encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds to engage with STEM activities through the medium of physical computing.
Young people interact more with technology than ever before, but they do not have equal opportunities to understand and influence the future of technology. We are currently missing out on so many potential engineers and scientists, who are underserved by current offerings. With strong groundings in technology and engineering as well as understanding of the educational landscape, SparkBots designs kits that specifically cater to the needs of these groups. The project aims to integrate young people’s thoughts and desires at every stage of the design and prototyping process, helping to build activities that are fun and engaging as well as educational.
Team: Caio Bezerra, Engineering (Year 3)
Stayn