On 2 October, the 2025 Catalyst Fund Winners demonstrated the impact of their cutting-edge ideas at a showcase event at Homerton College. Project leads delivered confident, insightful and persuasive presentations in the hope of securing funding from four additional Changemakers’ prizes and investment from Cambridge's innovation and investor eco-system.
Winners of the additional prizes were announced, with DermaFlo claiming the Ivan Baines Prize, the Rowland Orugboh Prize going to InstaMark, and the Lovely Naha Foundation Prize awarded to Tending Heart. New for 2025 was the J Nickerson – “Fulfilling Potential” Prize, which was awarded to Pathia.
After a busy start and a spot of networking, guests and judges heard from Homerton Changemakers Guest Chair, Evelyn Gilbert-Bair. Lord Simon Woolley, Homerton's Principal, then delivered a warm welcome, reiterating the importance of the programme alongside a Cambridge degree.
Simon comments:
“As well as a world-class degree, our students also need the confidence, the skills, and the values to navigate an increasingly complex and divided world. And that’s what Changemakers does. It gives students practical tools — from writing and public speaking, to networking and leadership. It helps them engage with the richness and diversity of human communities. And it challenges them to think big: about the economic, political and environmental systems shaping our planet.”
Changemakers Sponsor, Chantal Taylor, Group Head of HR, TTP plc, also spoke about the unique value of the Changemakers programme, before introducing the 2025 Catalyst Fund Winning Teams to present their promising business ideas.
Sophie Tan, project lead for InstaMark and winner of the Rowland Orugboh Prize commented:
“Winning the Olu Orugboh Prize is a huge honour. I'm grateful that my idea was not only recognised, but also supported by Olu to drive real social change. I’m excited to develop InstaMark, and truly believe it can make a meaningful impact in solving the everyday challenges faced by teachers and students.
Homerton Changemakers gave me the confidence, platform, and mentorship to take my vision seriously. Attending all the Changemaker events has deeply instilled in me the values needed to make profound differences for society. I strongly encourage anyone interested to get involved with the Changemakers programme.”
Andre Pancholi, project lead for Pathia and winner of the J Nickerson – “Fulfilling Potential” Prize, said:
“Winning this prize is a huge honour and something my team and I are very proud of. Changemakers has enabled us to develop a cutting-edge support mechanism for neurodiverse students - and we couldn’t have done it without access to mentors, financial support and the innovation community at Homerton.”
Read more about the 2025 Changemakers Catalyst Fund Winning Teams
The full list of prize winners are:
DermaFlo
Winner of the Ivan Baines Prize, sponsored by Rupert Baines, Serial Entrepreneur, in memory of his son. The prize is worth £1,500 and three-months mentoring.
Lead applicant: James Millett, PGCE 2024-2025, Ambassador
Everyone has cold hands, feet, noses, extremities and sometimes clothing does not cut it. We have made a cosmetic cream that maintains normal warmth for those very cold days. Our first product is made from safe cosmetic materials. We froze our hands and used thermal imaging to prove that it works. Apply it before going to the shops, cold water swimming (it’s waterproof), or before bed to warm up your feet. We are using Homerton Changemakers to help bring this non-medical cosmetic to market.
In parallel, Conor and James are developing a medical device for the 1 in 5 adults with Raynaud’s. Raynaud’s causes pain, numbness, and a loss of dexterity with no real treatments available. Our cosmetic product will generate revenue for further R&D of our medical device.
Team: Conor Crooks, Chief Scientific Officer, Imperial College London, PhD Candidate for Chemistry 2026, Medicinal Scientific Expert
InstaMark
Winner of the Rowland Orugboh Prize £1,000 and three-months mentoring, sponsored by Olu Orugboh, Chair, Cambridge Wireless Board in honour of her father.
Lead applicant: Sophie Tan, MEd Primary Education 25, Ambassador & School Teacher
InstaMark is a real-time, AI-powered marking tool designed by a teacher, for teachers to transform classroom feedback. It instantly reads and evaluates students’ typed or handwritten answers (e.g. on tablet devices) during lessons, providing immediate, tailored feedback. Whether a student needs scaffolded support for mistakes or challenge questions to stretch their thinking, InstaMark responds in the moment - making feedback faster, responsive, and more personalised than ever before.
If a student’s answer is incorrect, InstaMark offers step-by-step hints or prompts to guide them toward the correct understanding; if the answer is correct, it delivers a follow-up question to deepen mastery. Meanwhile, teachers see a live heatmap dashboard of the class’s performance, helping them identify misconceptions and intervene on the spot systematically. By closing the feedback loop within the class session, InstaMark frees teachers from hours of after-class marking and ensures every student receives timely support. This innovation in assessment empowers educators to focus on teaching and fosters better learning outcomes for students.
Feedback in the moment.
Progress on the spot.
Team: Ziyi Li, MPhil in Education (KPP) 25, Deepak Biradar, MBA 25 and Jana Abdel Aty,
BA Education
Tending Heart
Winner of the Lovely Naha Foundation Prize, £500 and three-months mentoring sponsored by Abhi Naha, Digital Accelerator, PwC & Ambassador United Nations Global Sustainability Index Institute, in honour of his entrepreneurial mother.
Lead applicant: Qiyu Xia, MPhil Psychology with Education, Ambassador
Tending Heart aims to create a Grief Toolkit - a resource and training offering, co-designed with educators, caregivers, and students, to build grief-sensitive communities in preschools. It equips adults to support children aged 4-5 to understand and process grief, loss and death through picture books, class discussions, and emotional literacy activities. The toolkit builds adults’ capacity to model healthy nervous system regulation, and create safe, supportive environments that can hold complex and tender conversations about grief. With these skills, adults can support children to self-regulate, which research has found to be essential for lifelong learning and development. In an era of growing instability and polycrisis, this work empowers schools to build resilient, compassionate communities where children can navigate loss, strengthen emotional connection, and flourish together. The grief toolkit aims to create a more sustainable, just and regenerative educational system, in which educators, caregivers and students can regulate themselves with increasing reliability.
Team: Agnes Purwoko, MPhil Critical Approaches to Children's Literature 2024–25, Jay Levontine, MPhil Arts, Creativity, and Education 2024–25, Kate Noble, MPhil Psychology and Education 2024–25, Jingyun Zhang, 3rd Year PhD Education
Pathia
Winner of the J. Nickerson, "Fulfilling Potential" Prize, £1,500 and three-months mentoring, sponsored by Dr Kevin Powell, Consumer-Centric Innovator, and his wife Ruth in honour of her father who is 92 and who has spent a lifetime teaching children from ages 8+.
Lead applicant: Andre Pancholi, Geography, 3rd Year, Ambassador
Pathia is an AI-powered educational platform designed to support neurodivergent students - particularly those with autism - in passing critical qualifications like Maths and English GCSEs.
Inspired by the real challenges faced by students like our founder’s (Elsa) brother, Pathia transforms how GCSE questions are presented: breaking them down, rephrasing complex language, and offering visual scaffolding tailored to each learner’s cognitive profile.
With millions of capable students currently locked out of opportunities due to rigid, language-heavy exams, Pathia equips them with the mental tools needed to thrive. We don’t do this by changing the system, but by adapting learning to how they think.
Our goal is to pilot Pathia in schools and shape a more inclusive educational future with technology that empowers rather than excludes.
Find us as at https://www.pathia.app/
Team: Andre Pancholi, 3rd Year Geography Homerton College (CFO), Oliver Fogelin, 2nd Year Computer Science Homerton College (CTO), Rachel Brooks, 2nd Year English Homerton College (Public Relations), Elsa Walston, Climate Tech, Imperial College Innovation (CEO Founder), Sonny Kong, 2nd Year MSc in Design Engineering at Imperial (CPO), Bruno Collingridge, London Interdisciplinary School BASc 2nd Year (UX Design)
2025 Mentors and Judges
A special thanks goes to the Changemakers Catalyst Fund Mentors and Judges:
Rupert Baines, Serial Entrepreneur/Investor & Carol Baines
Dan Dearing and Bernie Williams, Innovate UK Business Growth
Mary-Ann Claridge & Phil Claridge, Director of Mandrel Systems Ltd
Glenn Collinson, Serial Founder & NED/Advisory Board
Michaela Eschbach, CEO, Cambridge Wireless
Reinhard Eschbach, Former CEO & Coach
Will Foote, Silicon Catalyst & Cambridge Mechatronics Ltd
Pooya Kamvari, Founder CEO, HomeRun App & Alumnus of Homerton College
Sylvia Lu, Silicon Catalyst & YOOVIP
Polly Machin, Senior Investment Analyst, Cambridge Enterprise
Abhi Naha, UNDP Ambassador & Digital Accelerator Director, PwC
Olu Orugboh, Chair of Cambridge Wireless Board
Prof Gary Packham, Pro Vice Chancellor Innovation, ARU
Kevin Powell, Consumer-Centric Innovator & Ruth Powell
Kavita Ravindran & Rajeshwari Iyer, Founders of sAInaptics
Dave Roberts, CEO, Jabooh Software & SIG Champion, Cambridge Wireless
Paula Rogers-Brown, Consultant, Cambridge Enterprise
Chantal Taylor, Group Head of HR, TTP plc (representing the Hackathon Mentors)
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.
