Quinton joined the Jagriti Yatra as a facilitator to mentor more than 400 young people on an epic train journey circumnavigating the country. Jagriti Yatra, which means 'journey of awakening', is a project designed to encourage young people to become entrepreneurs by introducing them to some of examples of India's most successful commercial and social enterprises.

The journey began in Mumbai on 24 December 2011 and included stops at Delhi in the north, Patna in the east and Madurai in the far south; finishing back in Mumbai on 8 January 2012, a journey of 7,500km in 15 days. Around 400 young people travelled by train along with business mentors from all over the world.

Quinton said: "My role was helping to facilitate the learning process and working with the young entrepreneurs. I had thought about applying for the Jagriti Yatra over the last few years as it looked like an incredible and worthwhile adventure."

"We met quite a few interesting companies along the way, like InfoSys, who are a $2billion organisation, and Sanjit "Bunker" Roy's Barefoot College which is a non-government organisation that has been providing basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable. India is a place you can succeed as an entrepreneur but it has many issues such as the vast economic inequalities, overburdened infrastructure and lack of sustainable jobs. It was an interesting and eye-opening trip with plenty of hard work. Most nights we slept on our own customised packed train and had to get up at ridiculous times of the morning, but it was a great experience meeting young entrepreneurs from all over India and interacting with so many inspiring people and organisations."

More information on the Jagriti Yatra.

Bench to Boardroom is a leading event for research and operational staff in the life sciences, healthcare and technology sectors, with previous events having attracted more than 500 visitors

The programme includes keynote presentations, workshops, exhibition, and a technology showcase. The conference will be held at Newmarket Racecourse. If you are would like to arrange a meeting with Elaine at Bench to Boardroom, email her here.

Marinova has developed a proprietary method, the Maritech® process, for extracting fucoidan from a particular variety of seaweed.

Over more than 12 months, IP Pragmatics has supported Marinova to identify international business partners who would be interested in incorporating the Maritech® range of ingredients into their products. As a direct result of the company approaches organised by IP Pragmatics, discussions have been opened with more than 10 multinational companies, in the UK, Italy, France, Denmark, the US and Japan. Several of these have progressed further, with sample materials being provided for testing and formulation.

Through these efforts, Marinova recently signed a letter of intent with a large multinational company that wishes to commercialise a product containing one of the Maritech® fucoidan ingredients.

Paul Garrott, Marinova CEO & Managing Director, said: "This signed letter of intent had been instrumental in Marinova successfully securing the proof of concept grant from Commercialisation Australia. By leveraging IP Pragmatics' business development capabilities and networks we have been able to identify global commercial interest in our product range."

In mid-2011, Marinova successfully secured $249,964 from Commercialisation Australia, to validate its fucoidan's osteoarthritis efficacy claims in large clinical trials and to demonstrate a commercially viable dose that can enter the Joint Health market. Further details of this press release are available here.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Otago, Otago Innovation Ltd is charged with exclusive responsibility for the management and commercialisation of intellectual property arising from research within the university.

Through our partnership with IPRIS, IP Pragmatics continues to build on IPRIS' successful track record of offering an experienced, reliable and user-friendly patent annuity payment service to leading universities in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

As an example of the benefits of transitioning to IPRIS; working with one UK university with a portfolio of more than 500 patents, IP Pragmatics was able to save £32,000 from the university's renewals budget in the first year, allowing the university to increase its spend on protecting more innovations.