Thank you for being such a supportive community. After getting some help from all of you, especially from @Francisca_Chiedu, @May, and @badesemowo, I have finally decided to (with shivering hands) share my profile here to get some useful feedback.
I am currently working as a Data Scientist (as well as overall project manager) on an Innovate UK-funded project and co-founded a Climate tech startup (ML and Data Science based) as the CTO with one of Tech Nation’s recognized accelerator programs. Overall I have 3 years of experience as a Software Developer and 2 years as a Data Scientist.
Following is the breakdown I want to use for my application:
Mandatory Letters:
ML1: CEO of a successful startup in US - has been an entrepreneur and digital identity expert for more then two decades. I worked with him for a year in 2012 but he knows about my work and can write a good letter
ML2: A cyber security expert with more than 15 years experience and CEO of a Data+Cyber startup. He is Product owner of the startup in which I am working as a CTO
ML3: Experienced Professor of Data Science, I worked under his supervision for almost a year and he can write about my work as well as exceptional academic record
Evidence for Criteria:
Mandatory Criteria
Evidence 1: Letter from the Climate tech venture builder (recognized by Tech Nation)
E 2: Hackathon Win Letter - Won AI for Good Hackathon organized by PwC and UK BlackTech
E 3: Letter from Managing Director of my current company Detailing how I lead the development of UK’s first end-to-end smart data system for Packaging industry
E 4: TBD (Maybe I can use High Salary evidence from the previous job)
For Optional Criteria, I am aiming to target OC1 and OC4.
Optional Criteria 1:
E1: Innovate UK funded project, launched in PPMA show
E2: CTO of a climate tech startup
E3: Reference letter from my previous company X detailing my work on a novel challenging project which is currently being used at UAE’s most prestigious telecom company. Plus, design diagrams of the project
Optional Criteria 4
E1: Published Papers (2 conference papers)
E2: Certificate of Tutorial (Detailed talk) in a research conference where I was invited
E3: Academic excellence (Distinction in MSc, First class honours in BSc)
It will be immensely useful if I can get feedback on my draft application and ways to improve it.
MC: I don’t believe you’ve shown enough proof and track record of leadership from your evidence. Most are reference letters which is not enough.
OC1:
I have doubts about the innovation evidence as the burden of proof tends to be higher from what I’ve seen from other candidates here. Such as, all innovations should describe where you played the central role in it, and all of them need to have large commercial or technological impacts.
OC4:
Why are you not getting endorsement from an expert as the papers may not be a strong enough evidence without much demonstrable impact?
Was this paper published during your masters? In that case it may not suffice as Tech Nation guideline states that Research undertaken as part of an undergraduate or MSc thesis does not qualify for this criteria
There is a news clipping showing that I won a Hackathon but do you think there is something else I should add here?
Such as, all innovations should describe where you played the central role in it, and all of them need to have large commercial or technological impacts.
I thought showing impact was a different criterion to meet and for OC1, you just need to show that there was innovation in the work you were doing. In my case, I use Data Science and ML for packaging industry in the UK which was based on Innovate UK grant so innovation aspect has been approved by Innovate UK already, in my opinion. And the other work is on climate-tech which is quite emerging as well. But will be great if you can suggest what should be done here.
Why are you not getting endorsement from an expert as the papers may not be a strong enough evidence without much demonstrable impact?
If I ask a Professor (research expert) to write me an endorsement, should that be focusing on my research potential or leadership?
Was this paper published during your masters? In that case it may not suffice as Tech Nation guideline states that Research undertaken as part of an undergraduate or MSc thesis does not qualify for this criteria
No this was published from the work I did while in my job.
Thanks so much @Francisca_Chiedu. Can you please answer the following two queries as well
Mandatory criteria I think evidence 1 and 2 could be merged as a single evidence.
These two evidence belong to two different events and I was hoping to get some more documents for Hackathon as well. Do you still think they should be merged?
Mandatory criteria I think evidence 1 and 2 could be merged as a single evidence.
These two papers are conference papers (not journals), will they still work?