Now seven firms have made it to the shortlist, spaning energy, IT, biotechnology and healthcare sectors – a testament to the range of skill and entrepreneurship in the region.

The winner will receive free accommodation for a year in a fully-serviced suite in the prestigious Alba Innovation Centre: a cash prize of £10,000; low-interest loan funding of £20,000; links to advisory support : £7,500 worth of accountancy services and £7,500 worth of legal services

The companies in the race are:

Robomotic set up by Paolo Di Prodi  (right)  an AI expert working on design solutions for health care and assistance with an intelligent motion sensor and alert, targeting healthcare for elderly. His 2010 product (left) is a MyDS Reader - an ebook adaptation offering a spoken reader service for the blind.

Epistemy set up by Dr Dan Arnold (left) comes with the quaint pedigree of an 'Uncertainty Project' developing accurate forecasting of volumes and risk in oil exploration. It aims to develop practical methods for generating multiple history matched reservoir models, develop ways of incorporating prior geological data in uncertain history matches and forward predictions, generate tools and methods for predicting reservoir performance uncertainty and develop methods for quantifying the value of additional data

Optoscribe founder Nicholas Psaila (right)  is part of the nonlinear optics group at Heriot-Watt University with a focus on 3D micro- and integrated photonic solutions for communications and biomedical sensing, with 3D laser micromachining, microfluidics, and integrated optics.


UWI Technology's founder Peter Higgins is currently MD at CGI Media, and  also director at UWI Technology developing a smart label for monitoring food, pharma cosmetic, veterinary and industrial glue and other chemical markets. The smart label will be used with containers that have a critical safety period once it has been opened

James Lucas – White Label Technology, is another serial entrepreneur co-Founder at White Label Technology and owner at Cloud Consultancy where the focus is software development of next generation computer servers.

Guy Hunter – Alba Technology Bridges has a foot astride the big pond having formed companies on both sides of the Atlantic a broad base of experience is available to tap into. With a Ltd company in Scotland and an LLC in Texas, He operates  Somerled where the focus is on design and production through bridge-boards for software development.

Efforts to bridge the worlds of defence technologists, academia and industry often to overcome their isolation, finds that the best efforts and intentions of several dedicated bodies are devoted to this endevour. 

Advice and assistance can be applied from the perspective of modular board solutions. Rapid prototype with reduced risk and cost. Ideal platform for technology proving and demonstration of investment-ready real solutions.  Starting from a blank sheet of paper a review of possible intermediate steps between desktop PC based applications and real deployable product can be provided.   Most advantage gained where the performance of multiple FPGAs and/or industrial platforms are involved. 
 
On offer is Independent advice and assistance from a practical perspective, with no connection with any sponsoring public bodies or support from public funding believed to be ideal for SMEs who know assistance must be available from the public sector but whose experience has been every possible encouragement, short of actual assistance.

Sensor Measurement Engineering is the result of work by Zimei Rong 
who was warded a Royal Society grant to develop a biosensor based diffusion property tester for tissue engineering and regenerative medicines

The seven short listed candidates are now working towards an interview with an external panel of judges between 28 and 29 January 2010, with an outright winner being announced at an event on 24 February at Howden Park Centre in Livingston.

For those firms who didn’t make the final shortlist, and those who will not win in the short list, the competition’s Project Board have offered support from Business Gateway and the Alba Innovation Centre to help their business become a success in West Lothian.

Stephen Morris, Alba Innovation Centre manager (left) explained: "Although these candidates were unsuccessful in making the short list, they all have huge potential. We hope to be able to work with them and help them grow and expand their idea in West Lothian".