Liverpool student’s idea could be £20,000 winner

Mar 31 2008 by Laura Sharpe, Liverpool Daily Post

A LIVERPOOL student is on the way to be being crowned the UK’s best “Unipreneur” after coming up with a world first to help people with colour blindness while completing his studies.

Luke Walsh, 25, from Aigburth, has created computer software that will help colour-blind sufferers to identify the colours they can’t see.

The software can be added to any desktop or mobile phone and will automatically change the blind colours into another so the user can see them.

After four years and £50,000 to develop the software, Luke and fellow student Luke Jefferson are national finalists in the HSBC awards.

Their product, which was whittled down from 400, faces competition from four other ideas including a water purifier for the third world.

Luke, an electronics student at York University, is hoping opticians will initially promote their software to people at diagnosis stage.

But from there, he hopes to make his millions selling the software at £25 to the one in 12 people who suffer from colour blindness.

He said: “I met Luke on a business scholarship trip to America we both went on.

“He had come up with the idea to help colour-blind people through his PhD work and with our similar computer and electronic background we hooked up and formed our company Scratchface Limited.

“My dad has a Liverpool-based electronics business, and from the age of two I used to help him build equipment.”

The pair are hoping their product will appeal to some of the ½bn sufferers of colour blindness across the world.

Luke added: “We want to launch the business, www.huetility.com, from here in Liverpool.”

The Unipreneurs award is run by HSBC, who will present the winner with a cheque for £20,000 at the end of April.

The award is open to young students and recent graduates and is backed by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE).

laurasharpe