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In November, Sarah and I entered a competition called Samsung Solve For Tomorrow 2023/4. This competition aimed to empower the next generation of innovators by inviting competitors to submit their ideas for Samsung judges to review. We are currently finalists in the competition and are pitching our idea at Samsung KX for £10,000 on 19th June.

Initially, we planned to build a shoe that could fit anyone of any size, targeted at children in poverty. However, we soon realised the mechanics behind this design were unrealistic. So we decided to approach our design from a medical perspective: a biometric shoe for diabetic patients known as CuraStep. In a nutshell, CuraStep utilises pressure and infrared sensors to predict ulceration patterns in diabetics; acting as the nervous system for those who experience peripheral neuropathy (the loss of sensation in your foot). This information is fed back to our app, which sends notifications to the user, telling them to adjust the fitting of the shoe, thereby offloading the pressure on the foot.

Back in January, we got an email saying we were selected as semi-finalists out of 600 participants. Then, we were invited to attend numerous exclusive workshops held by leading designers in Samsung EU, Mettle Studio and the CEO of Batch.Works. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from top marketers and designers in the industry.

We were also assigned an amazing mentor who worked in the marketing team of Samsung UK. Through the workshops and weekly mentor sessions, we developed our product further. We were even invited to the Batch.Works headquarters to build a physical prototype!

Over Easter, we built a slide deck entailing the details about our product, and created a business model to outline how we would sell CuraStep. After weeks of intense typing and drawing, we were finally able to celebrate the completion of our submission. Subsequently, we received an email congratulating us for making it into the finals. We were in the top 5 out of the 12 semi-finalists in our age group!

Currently, we are attending more workshops held by CEOs, Samsung marketers and professional speakers to refine our pitching skills in preparation for 19th June.

The best part of this experience has been the people we have met along the way. We are still in close contact with most of the competitors and have made meaningful friendships that will last a lifetime.

We are super excited to embark on this journey and can’t wait to see where CuraStep takes us! We also have a Forum 42 talk arranged at College to showcase our journey and test our pitching skills. There is a public voting segment of our competition, so keep an eye out on CLC social media platforms to find out how to vote for us!

Raye (SFC1)