Software company Wheatley has been named winner of a new competition staged by Innovation Martlesham, the cluster of hi-tech companies based at BT’s Adastral Park research site, near Ipswich.

Innovation Marltesham (IM), organised the contest in association with BT and Suffolk County Council, with University Campus Suffolk also involved in the judging process.

Wheatley, whose pitch to the judges focused on support for people no longer in their own homes, now has the opportunity to work with the four organisations to develop its ideas.

Ian Buxton, chair of Innovation Martlesham said: “Wheatley are well deserved winners of our first competition and I am glad that a local company can work with us and our partners to progress an idea which will help reduce pressure in the health and care sector”.

Chris Bally, chief information officer at Suffolk County Council, said: “We were incredibly impressed with the passion and energy shown by the representatives of Wheatley. They had taken a very broad brief and clearly thought about it deeply and tested concepts within their organisation.

“We look forward to working with them in the coming months to develop something which helps to address the growing pressure on the health and care system in Suffolk. It is great that a medium-sized Suffolk Company has come forward with such an innovative proposal and it just goes to show again the quality of the companies we have on our own doorstep”.

Paul O’Brien, head of business and operational transformation practice at BT, said: “Wheatley are an agile and innovative Suffolk-based software company. Their excellent submission, Senior Service, addresses a key need in our society and is both an innovative and practical approach to enabling care in the community.”

Professor Mohamed Abdel-Maguid, head of the department of science and technology within the Faculty of Health and Science at UCS, added: “This type of initiative is what the region needs to stimulate innovation. I would like to congratulate Wheatley for putting together a winning project proposal and am delighted to contribute to the Research and Development Support being offered to the winners.”

Jeremy Goulding, chief executive of Wheatley, said: “Wheatley are delighted to have been selected as winners of the Innovation Martlesham ICT competition.

“We are looking forward to working with the competition sponsors to develop our idea to maximise its potential and meet real user needs. Wheatley are well known in in the utility metering sector, but have recently begun to look at how we can apply our software skills and expertise to develop solutions for other markets.

“The opportunity with Innovation Martlesham is therefore a fantastic boost for us in achieving our goals for long-term growth.”

Wheatley will also now become part of the IM business incubator, part of the growing IM cluster which now involves more than 60 companies.