Entrepreneur and parliamentarian Lord Swraj Paul has joined hands with the University of Wolverhampton to invest £80,000 in a new company that has developed specialist software for auditing the use of rooms in public buildings.
Paul's Caparo Angad Paul Fund, set up in memory of his son Angad Paul, has invested in Space Audit Systems Ltd as a Wolverhampton University spin-out company to promote the new innovative concept.
The fund was set up in recognition of Angad's vision and commitment to innovation and transforming ideas into reality, said Lord Paul, the Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton.
Space Audit Systems Ltd has been created to build on a business plan proposed by Nathan Leadbetter, a graduate in computer science from the university who works in the University's Registry Department.
Leadbetter found that universities are required to collect and report data about the utilisation of rooms in their estate and need this information to help plan when new buildings are required. While carrying out audits himself, he could see the potential for software to manage the same issue at other Universities.
"From my experience of working to solve this problem, and talking to my opposite numbers at other universities, I know that the software we've developed is a great step forward. It is fantastic to have been given this opportunity to prove the commercial potential, he said.
Conventionally, this work is undertaken by students employed on a casual basis, but this can leave some doubt over the data quality. Nathan has overseen the development of software and a management system which has proven to be very effective in ensuring proper collection and reporting of the data at low cost, and he is now being entrusted to lead the new company, the University of Wolverhampton said.
The Caparo Angad Paul Fund was established by the Caparo Group, working with the University of Wolverhampton, to support university research projects in transitioning from the laboratory to the commercial world. The fund provides early-stage financing and commercial support prior to a project being able to secure funding on normal commercial terms.
