The Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year Awards 2020, sponsored by Julius Baer, are open for entries. Innovation will be vital in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and in the recovery phase that follows. We’re looking for entrepreneurs in every sector and region of the UK whose products are changing markets and have the potential for global success. We’re especially keen to identify ventures that are making valuable social impacts during the current crisis.
We’re also fascinated to know how entrepreneur-led businesses are coping with the lockdown. Here are two such stories — of The Floow and ReBound, respectively the North East and Midlands regional winners of our 2019 Awards.
Entrepreneurs are optimists by nature. They’re also intensely focused on perfecting their products, so more able than most of us to tune out the noise around them — much of which, in today’s troubled world, could otherwise be very disturbing.
So it was no surprise to find Dr Sam Chapman in strikingly calm mode on the phone. Sam is co-founder of The Floow, a Sheffield-based venture that applies big-data analysis to car insurance, with the aim of reducing risks for insurers and premiums for good drivers. ‘We’re a digital business so we’re able to carry on day-to-day, more or less as normal,’ he told me. ‘Our 120 staff are all working from home, but we’re looking towards ramping up again in September.
‘In the meantime, the crisis is certainly impacting what we do, part of which is monitoring driver behaviour through phone apps and on board “black boxes” — and encouraging high-risk drivers to drive safer. Currently there are far fewer cars on the road and most journeys fall into the category of “essential”, so it’s not appropriate for us to be calling drivers and coaching them on safer driving, as we’d normally do.
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