News Update
May 2011
Simon Gets on His Soap Box and Optima-life Lands Top NHS Innovation Award
The Optima-life team were celebrating last night after landing a prestigious Medilink, 'Partnership with the NHS' Innovation Award, which was presented to CEO Simon Shepard, at a Gala Dinner at the East Midlands Conference Centre.
What a fun night it was. Members of the Optima-life team were joined at the Awards dinner by the staff from the Leicester NIHR Biomedical Research Unit in Cardiovascular Diseases, at Glenfield Hospital, who have been using Optima-life's Firstbeat technology to assist in the evaluation of cardio-respiratory fitness in chronic heart failure patients. Such a fantastic group and so easy to see why the project has gone so well.
Optima-life's Healthcare Director Dr Simon Wallace and Natalie Alcock played leading roles in setting up the project and supporting the Glenfield team. Unfortunately, Natalie was on holiday and missed the celebrations but her hard work and that of others was recognised in the copious amount of wine drunk, toasting her and Drs Anna-Marie Marsh, Dr Mo Jeilan and Dr Peter Brown, who were also unable to attend.
The Awards dinner was part of the Medilink Innovation day which comprised of a full exhibition and conference, incorporating a series of soapbox presentations, hosted by BBC Presenter and Journalist Vivian Parry MBE.
Simon Shepard led from the front with a 5 minute soapbox presentation outlining why Optima-life, its technology and services are cutting edge, relevant and a pathway to creating real behavioural change in individuals. He played a blinder and his amusing repartee with Vivian Parry, which continued as he received his award, certainly created a stir and much amusement.
The Awards Dinner saw the use of key pad voting technology which allowed the audience to cast their vote after watching a short 2 minute film clip about each finalist company. Judges from Medilink and the NHS had already cast their votes prior to the dinner and the audience scores were added - Strictly Come Dancing had nothing on this. The team had to wait until the second course was over for their category to come up and the tension around the table was immense.
As the Optima-life logo result flashed across the table it was unclear whether the screams were delight or astonishment - Simon Shepard had been reassured on the way in to dinner that you never won this award at your first attempt.
Simon Shepard collected the award and in true Oscar style remembered to thank everyone bar his mum. Seriously though, it was spot on that he did mentioned two other stars in this award - Costa Phillipou from Medilink and Ros Graves from the Healthcare and Bioscience iNet. Without their insight and huge support the project would never have happened.
A Match of the Day style photo session followed the dinner and Simon and the team posed perfectly for countless pictures. Weary but with mile wide grins the troops headed home.
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