Meet The 2023 Go:Tech Awards Winners: Carescribe

In a dazzling display of innovation and technological prowess, CareScribe triumphed as the victor of the highly coveted Most Innovative Use Of Software Or Cloud Technology award at the prestigious 2023 Go:Tech Awards. The panel of esteemed judges was left awe-struck yet again by the sheer brilliance exhibited by the exceptional group of entrepreneurs competing for this year’s honours.

Carescribe nabbed this esteemed accolade, standing as a powerful force for positive change, revolutionising lives across the UK with its groundbreaking assistive technology. However, their aspirations don’t end there—they have their sights set on a global impact, aiming to bring their life-transforming product to the world stage.

This remarkable enterprise, brought to life by two visionary brothers, has achieved an astounding 100% year-on-year growth, all accomplished through their own resources and unwavering determination. Undeniably, this company stands out as a shining star in the vast tech landscape, setting new standards and paving the way for a brighter future.

We caught up with CareScribe’s Managing Director Chris Purcell after scooping the Go:Tech Awards trophy to talk inspiration, breakthroughs and more.

Can you share with us the inspiration behind your winning business and how it addresses a specific industry challenge or opportunity?

CareScribe was founded by me, my brother Richard, and our friend Tom Cartwright – all of us are neurodivergent and we’d been on distinctly different journeys in terms of how we were supported with this throughout higher education and work.

There are always barriers faced by people with disabilities but there’s no reason that we, as a society, can’t overcome them nowadays: especially with all the advances we are making in assistive technology.

For context: disability employment rates at the moment are around 54%. That means that almost half of the people who are in the UK and are disabled aren’t at work. Clearly, there are a huge number of barriers preventing people in the workplace from participating fully in their work (and even before they get to that point, during their studies) and we don’t think that’s reasonable.

And so the raison d’etre for CareScribe is to remove the barriers facing people in full-time education and the workplace and to enable them to study and work independently.

Could you describe the key milestones or breakthroughs you achieved during the development of your project, and how they contributed to its success?

I’d say that the key milestone for CareScribe was the one where we proactively decided to invest in our idea. Tom, Rich, and I met on a boat in Bristol and agreed to explore the potential of taking our captioning and dictation software to market. Some people might not consider that to be a big “key” milestone – but it’s where it all began for us – and that’s very special to me.

As a winner at the Go:Tech Awards, what advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs or innovators who are looking to make a difference in the technology sector?

If you’ve got an idea which you believe in: go after it. There are many different ways you can validate your decision. You don’t necessarily need to go for VC funding or borrow to build whatever idea you’ve had. You can go onto platforms like Upwork or People Per Hour, find a freelancer who can craft something quickly – it’s not going to be perfect, don’t let “great” get in the way of “good” – but it allows you to verify whether something’s going to work or not.

Once you’ve validated whether your idea is worth pursuing, and when you know that you’ve got something – go after it! It’s at that point, once you’ve validated your idea, that you’ve got to really think about the shape of the business and your team. An idea is an idea; everyone has one of those. But the way that you make things really successful is by having the most amazing team. If you want to grow, you’ve got to find the best people. Find the best team in the market and then give them the resources and the space they need to develop and drive the business forward.

Do you have any advice for entrepreneurs considering entering the Go:Tech Awards in the future?

Entering the Go:Tech awards this year did several things for our business. Firstly, the application process provided us with a great opportunity to look back at where we’d come with our product and reflect on how much we’d accomplished. Secondly, it’s been a brilliant achievement to discuss with our prospects as it helps demonstrate the impact we’ve made for our customers in our chosen markets. Thirdly, and most importantly, winning the Go:Tech award was a lovely way for us to rally the team – it’s brilliant to have something tangible in the office which represents the huge efforts every single person at CareScribe has put into making our assistive technology truly impactful for end users.

Looking ahead, what are your future plans for your business?

CareScribe has ambitious plans for the future. We’re seeing a lot of demand within the UK and longer term we hope to expand internationally, taking our assistive technology products, Caption.Ed and TalkType, into the EU and Australia.

We also plan to grow our headcount by 50% this year in order to deliver on our vision of creating an accessible future where people with disabilities can work & study independently. It’s set to be a very exciting rest of 2023!