UWE Bristol: Open Bionics team member Samantha Payne shortlisted for 'Women in Business Awards'

Open Bionics team member, Samantha Payne has been shortlisted for the Women in Business 'Young Entrepreneur of The Year' award.

23-year-old Samantha has made the top four of the Women in Business Awards award put on by the Bristol Post and Bath Chronicle.

The Women in Business Awards celebrate 'amazing business' and 'incredible people' in the south west region.

Bristol Post editor Mike Norton said, “Our Bristol Post and Bath Chronicle Women in Business Awards celebrate the energy of our entrepreneurs, passion of our professionals and tenacity of our business owners. The awards are of course a great showcase for our fantastic businesses.”

Samantha, who co-runs Open Bionics with founder Joel Gibbard, helped win the company $200,000 by pitching in Intel's 'Make it Wearable' competition.

Open Bionics, a startup based at the Technology Business Incubator at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, uses 3D printing to create affordable robotic prosthetic hands for amputees.

Samantha said, “I'm grateful for the nomination, usually its Joel picking up awards left, right, and centre! It has been a roller-coaster year with Open Bionics and I'm really excited about the direction we're going and how fast we seem to be getting there. Working together as a small startup in a new space is an absolutely amazing experience. ”

Joel Gibbard, Open Bionics' founder, said, “Samantha truly deserves to win this award for her enormous contribution, not only to Open Bionics, but towards startup businesses in Bristol. She's a great ambassador for women in technology and gives talks at STEM events too.”

Samantha and Joel recently returned from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where they fitted a man born without a hand with the most advanced 3D printed robotic prosthetic to date. View the video and find out more on Open Bionics' latest blog.

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