Mail Rail — the venue for the grand finale of The Spectator’s Economic Disruptor Awards, sponsored by Julius Baer — is the former terminus of the driverless underground London Post Office Railway that shuttled mail between London’s major sorting offices from 1927 until 2003. A fine example of the disruptive technology of its era, it had a Doctor Who ambience that made it the perfect setting to celebrate the entrepreneurial creativity showcased in this first year of our Disruptor Awards.
The range of innovative business ideas presented to us from all over the country was dazzling: everything short of a better model of sonic screwdriver for the Doctor, you might say. That made for a fascinating six-month project, but a very tough final choice for the judges. We defined a ‘disruptor’ as a venture that is radically changing its marketplace in terms of price, choice, accessibility or distinctive technology; we were also looking for entries that are financially robust and in a position to scale up, nationally and internationally; and for those that have the potential to make a positive contribution to society and human wellbeing.
Our judges, who included a distinguished panel of entrepreneurs and venture-capital investors, found themselves having to make comparisons between businesses in widely different sectors, from the more familiar territory of consumer services, fintech, social media and healthcare to the outer frontiers of bioscience and big data. If it was relatively easy to pick 22 finalists (ten in London and the South which accounted for a large proportion of overall entries, three each in the Midlands, the North West and Wales, the North East, and Scotland and Northern Ireland) out of a total of almost 100 from across the country, it was almost impossible to choose between those finalists.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in