Aberdeen innovators have claimed three national prizes at Scotland’s university innovation awards, spanning the flagship challenge, net zero and health and wellbeing.
Scensai, led by founder Marcus Campbell Bannerman and Ammar Elhoweris from the University of Aberdeen, has been crowned winner of the flagship Converge Challenge, while fellow university venture Catalyst Neuromorphic, developed by Henry Shulayev Barnes, secured the Net Zero Challenge. In addition, Shannon Babbie won the Health & Wellbeing prize in the early-stage KickStart Challenge for The Belonging Quotient.
Scensai's Converge Challenge win is the first for Aberdeen in more than a decade, while the Net Zero and KickStart prizes for Catalyst Neuromorphic and The Belonging Quotient add to a strong showing at this year's national awards.
Marcus Campbell Bannerman, founder of Scensai, said: “We’re trying to solve quality-control issues for the food and beverage industry and, at the moment, we’re focusing on whisky. We’re giving producers something objective they can use to measure a cask and know if it is safe to fill, so they don’t lose money further down the line when the whisky matures.
“We’re overjoyed. It’s super exciting and such a big privilege. We felt like we’d made it just getting here.”
Scensai's affordable handheld “electronic nose” could transform quality control for breweries, distilleries, wineries and other drinks producers by delivering an objective chemical reading directly on the production floor.
Producers currently rely on human taste and smell for routine quality checks, while more detailed analysis can mean sending samples to external laboratories and waiting several days for results.
Scensai is designed to close that gap, allowing non-specialist staff to detect off-flavours, check batch consistency and monitor fermentation directly on the production floor. Its software also builds a growing library of chemical signatures, with longer-term potential in areas including food fraud detection, customs screening and breath diagnostics.
That achievement reflects Converge’s wider role in helping staff, students and recent graduates from Scotland’s universities develop the commercial skills, expertise and connections needed to turn promising ideas into sustainable businesses.
Adam Kosterka, Executive Director of Converge, said: “To see three Aberdeen founders win major awards in the same year is a real endorsement of the north-east's entrepreneurial talent.
“What links them is a clear route from research to real world use. That is what Converge exists to support and these founders show what is possible when that backing is in place.”
“For 15 years, Converge has worked to give ambitious founders the support and connections they need to take strong ideas beyond the university environment and towards real-world impact.”
Aberdeen’s second major success, Catalyst Neuromorphic from 18-year-old founder Henry Shulayev Barnes is developing brain-inspired processors designed to carry out artificial intelligence tasks using significantly less power than conventional computing. The solution has potential applications in drones, remote field stations and sensors where battery life and access to electricity can be limited.
Shulayev Barnes has already built and tested the first version of the Catalyst processor, which features 128 cores and more than 32,000 spiking neurons. A UK patent application has also been filed.
He said: “I’m hoping to enhance AI and help bring about a new era of low-power edge computing. I started looking into this around four or five years ago through microcontroller and FPGA design, and when AI really started taking off, I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole looking at neuromorphic computing.
“I saw what companies like Intel and IBM were doing and thought, ‘how hard can it be?’ So I started working on my own neuromorphic processor. It took years, but it worked out well.
“Winning this is difficult to put into words. I’m absolutely delighted and still taking it all in. It feels amazing to have the work recognised in this way.”
Aberdeen’s third success, The Belonging Quotient, led by Shannon Babbie from the University of Aberdeen, is a research-led venture providing a standardised accessibility audit and accreditation service for neurodivergent people. It helps organisations identify sensory barriers and make practical changes that create more welcoming environments.
These victories come as the University of Aberdeen continues to embed entrepreneurship and innovation more widely across its courses, opening enterprise opportunities to staff and students from a broad range of disciplines.
This approach is designed to help people develop ideas beyond the academic environment, with enterprise and innovation activity connecting emerging founders with practical support, networks and opportunities.
Scensai, Catalyst Neuromorphic and The Belonging Quotient provide three very different examples of that ambition, spanning applications from food and drink production to energy-efficient artificial intelligence and accessibility for neurodivergent people.
Formed in 2011, Converge has become a driving force for university-led innovation, supporting more than 1000 academic entrepreneurs who have gone on to establish over 500 companies.
Businesses taking part in the Converge programme have a three-year survival rate of 86%, significantly above the national average. This reflects both the strength of innovation emerging from universities and the quality, support and rigour of the programme.
Building on that milestone, Converge is preparing to launch Converge 2.0 in 2027, an evolved offering which will broaden its support and introduce more tailored, sector-specific pathways for ventures at an advanced stage of development.
The Converge Awards will remain at the heart of the programme as it enters its next chapter, continuing to provide a national platform for university founders turning innovative ideas into ambitious and sustainable businesses.