Founder and managing director of Synaptec, Philip Orr, has won the Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the University of Strathclyde’s Company Creation Conference held on May 1st 2019.
The nomination came following an extremely successful 12 months for Synaptec, which has seen the company expand both its team and manufacturing and research facilities, and secure a series of high-profile contracts and trials to install their flagship product Refase™.
The Company Creation Conference was held in the Strathclyde Business School where Principal and judging panel chair Professor Sir Jim McDonald, and keynote speaker Dr Graeme Malcolm OBE, CEO of M-Squared Lasers. presented Philip with his award. Open to the entire university community, the conference was delivered by the Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network to provide insight and expert help on creating and building a successful company.
As a former student, who went from undergraduate to PhD to honorary researcher at Strathclyde, Philip’s journey creating a pioneering tech company which produced the first scalable system to passively monitor electrical networks using fiber optic cables is an inspiring tale for other prospective entrepreneurs.
The inaugural Company Creation Conference was held at the University of Strathclyde to celebrate alumni success.
Commenting on the win, Philip said:
“It’s a great honour to win Strathclyde’s inaugural Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year award. I consider myself part of the Strathclyde family, and it gives me great pleasure to take groundbreaking new products to market based on technology we developed together. I look forward to continuing to work with Strathclyde in their role as shareholders and investors in Synaptec.”
Commercialisation Infrastructure Manager at the University of Strathclyde, Stuart Mackenzie added:
“There are few more challenging career paths than transitioning from University researcher to CEO of a growth company, and in the experience of the Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network team, which has worked with him since prior to the formation of Synaptec, few Strathclyde alumni have achieved that transition more impressively than Dr Orr.”
MD Philip Orr accepts the award from Professor Sir Jim McDonald, and Dr Graeme Malcolm, OBE.