COVID-19: Oxford Foundry, an entrepreneurship centre at Oxford, accelerates innovative solutions

The Foundry team has convened a global taskforce of more than 60 leading entrepreneurs, policy-makers, investors, business leaders, and philanthropists. These include Foundry board members, advisors and supporters:

• Mohamed Amersi, founder of the Amersi Foundation
• Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter
• Reid Hoffman CBE, internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist
• Alexsis de Raadt St James, founder and managing partner of Merian Ventures, board member of the Fulbright US-UK Foundation
• Honorary advisor Arlan Hamilton, founder of Backstage Capital
• Angela Ahrendts DBE, former CEO of Burberry and SVP retail at Apple
• Arunma Oteh, former vice president and treasurer at the World Bank

The Foundry is leveraging the University’s extensive faculty, alumni and student networks, which provide support as mentors and champions. Since it was opened by Saïd Business School two years ago, the Foundry has accelerated 32 start-ups, with 13 of these actively engaging in the fight against COVID-19. The ventures include a GP-to-patient remote platform that has scaled in three weeks to help hundreds of thousands of patients, fever detection cameras, sensors to monitor NHS hospital bed availability, a communication platform for care home residents and families to keep in touch, and a remote tutoring app for students.

The first part of the Foundry’s action plan is to dramatically scale-up support and access to networks and grant funding for these 13 start-ups. Through the generosity of the Foundry’s network of entrepreneurs and business leaders, the Foundry provides the crucial runway and resources needed to achieve the maximum impact, as rapidly as possible.

The second part is the OXFO COVID-19 Rapid Solutions Builder, an initiative designed to find and scale up innovative solutions to challenges that will arise from the pandemic in the foreseeable future.

The Rapid Solutions Builder is opening the call to all Oxford students and alumni who have innovative solutions within four critical areas: Healthcare, Education, Inclusive Social Engagement and Mobility, and Operations, Logistics and Supply Chains. The four most viable solutions will be put onto a newly created two-month intensive programme, where they will be supported by a curriculum of masterclasses, a network of mentors, and public and private sector partners to provide critical operational, technical and infrastructural support.

Critically, the Foundry will also be making the call out to students and alumni to contribute time and expertise to proposed solutions and ventures. This will be done through partnerships with student societies such as Oxford AI Society, Engineers without Borders Oxford (EWBOx), and Oxford Biotech Society. The provision of grant funding will aid the vital growth and development of these solutions.

Participants will be further guided by industry experts who will ensure that their solutions are developed for integration into wider national and global systems with rapid implementation, including:

• Colum Conway, Chief Executive of Social Work England
• Dr June Raine, Interim Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
• Evan Sharp, co-founder of Pinterest
• Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School

'The COVID-19 pandemic is shining a fierce light onto the areas of our society that urgently need fixing. It has highlighted the inequalities, the divisions, and the scarcities. Now more than ever, it has shown us that there is a huge need for us to be connected and supported by ties of community, empathy, and compassion. Right now, our world is being reshaped and reframed by this pandemic, presenting our post-COVID-19 society with multiple challenges,' said Ana Bakshi, Director of the Oxford Foundry.

'Universities are uniquely placed to address these, being home to multiple communities and having the capability to bring them together rapidly and effectively. We have repurposed the majority of the Foundry team’s time towards our COVID-19 response and are determined to feed into the huge efforts being made across the world,' added Bakshi.

Foundry senior advisor Reid Hoffman CBE said:

'The Oxford Foundry COVID-19 action plan combines two important elements: supporting a portfolio of ventures that are already directly responding to the pandemic crisis, and engaging Oxford’s talented entrepreneurial students and alumni to rapidly build practical solutions to the secondary and tertiary problems the crisis is bringing to the surface – challenges such as food scarcity, supply chain breakdown, coping with mass bereavement and trauma, and the remote delivery of education. At this time of global crisis, we all need to be leveraging on our respective communities and creating new ways for us to conceive and build the frameworks that our post-COVID society will need in order to function and flourish again. I'm heartened by the Foundry's swift and intelligent response to these huge societal challenges, and optimistic that the impact generated from this initiative will be deep and far-reaching.'

Advisor to the Oxford Foundry and Chair of the Amersi Foundation, Mohamed Amersi, said:

'Now is the time to put people before profit. Our goal is to relieve pressure on our vital services, save lives, and make sure the wellbeing, education and livelihoods of our populations remain supported. The Oxford Foundry is central in mobilising and directing talent towards these goals, from both within the University and outside. In these challenging times, the Foundry is a beacon of light and ultimately, when the pandemic will pass the learnings imparted by the Foundry will prevail and the world will be a better place as a result.'

Foundry Advisor and Co-founder of Twitter, Biz Stone said:

'As an advisor to the Oxford Foundry, I am part of a talented multidisciplinary community. At this moment in history, it's imperative that we harness the ability of networks like Oxford for the greater good and for the future of society. We are currently engaged on two fronts. First, we are supporting our existing ventures already directly responding to the pandemic. Next, we are mobilising this vast network of great minds to come up with actionable solutions to the myriad problems that lay ahead. We can all, both individually and collectively, respond to the challenges the world is facing at this moment. In doing so, we give ourselves the greatest chance of standing stronger together on the other side.'

Further information on the OXFO COVID-19 Action Plan is available at: https://www.oxfordfoundry.ox.ac.uk/oxfo-covid-19-action-plan