Derry-based technology company SeeMe Ltd has secured a £75,000 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award, with CEO and Founder Mary Blake selected from a record 1,590 applicants from across the UK.
Mary is one of only 61 award winners nationally and one of only two successful applicants from Northern Ireland, the other being Pragya Sharma, founder of Gran Lab. Both businesses will also receive 12 months of business support, training, networking , and role-modelling opportunities.
The Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards, now in their tenth year, support leading women entrepreneurs to maximise the impact of their innovative ideas, particularly those that align with the high-growth sectors defined in the UK’s Industrial Strategy. Over £15m has been invested to date in 260 women founders who have received the awards since their inception in 2016.
SeeMe is an AI-enabled personal archive platform that allows users to transform collections of photographs into rich, multi-layered narratives, creating valuable intergenerational archives. The company’s proprietary technology enables people to preserve the precious stories, memories, and emotions behind their photographs, rather than just relying on large, context-less Image dumps on their phones or in the cloud. It also means people can securely share their images and associated memories on a secure, privacy-first platform.
The Innovate UK funding will now see SeeMe Ltd move into a 12-month SeeMe Ltd Narrated Archives Platform (SNAP) project, focusing on the next stage of development and taking SeeMe's existing technology through its next phase of co-design and validation.
Before founding SeeMe Ltd, Mary Blake, who is originally from Enniskillen and now living in Derry, held senior roles across the cultural, international marketing and public sectors, including work with National Museums. Speaking about what the UK Women in Innovation Award means for SeeMe Ltd, she said: “Many of us have thousands of photos on our phones and in the cloud, but often they are effectively just large image dumps that don’t capture the stories and memories that matter; they don’t share what was happening at that time, or why that moment mattered in someone’s life.
“SeeMe’s privacy-first, AI-enabled technology, allows people to securely preserve what are our most authentic human moments and memories for ourselves and the people who matter most, and to store and share them securely now and into the future. Being one of only 61 successful applicants out of almost 1600 innovative companies across the UK is huge validation of the work we have done to date. I am incredibly proud to be an Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award Winner as it provides the type of very real, tangible support that is so essential to companies like SeeMe Ltd, which are set to grow globally but which are being built in a local region like Derry City outside of our main traditional economic hubs.
“This award will further fuel our ambition and all of the opportunities ahead as we develop SeeMe’s potential across families, elder care and wider care settings, and with global diaspora communities and cultural institutions.”
Speaking about this year’s recipients, Tom Adeyoola, Executive Chair of Innovate UK, praised this year’s winners: "This year's Women in Innovation cohort represents some of the UK’s most exciting entrepreneurial talent. These founders are developing the ideas, technologies and businesses that will drive economic growth, attract investment, and tackle some of the world's biggest challenges. Many of today's most successful companies started with a bold idea and the right support at the right time. Through Women in Innovation, we are backing founders with the ambition, talent, and determination to develop the UK’s most promising companies. Many congratulations to every member of this exceptional cohort."
