Kate Taylor with her Innovation Award plaque – Photo Credit: Wycombe High School
Wycombe High School hosted an event to celebrate their former pupil, Kate Taylor, who has won the prestigious Women in Innovation Award from Innovate UK by unveiling a purple plaque in her honour on the school site.
The purple plaque is Innovate UK’s twist on the blue plaques seen in the UK. Currently, just 14% of blue plaques in the UK celebrate the achievements of women. This highlights a national issue of the under-representation of women in the media, the workplace and in the education system, resulting in a lack of relatable role models for children and young people.
Purple plaques are being displayed at schools across the country to recognise the achievements of some of the female innovators who have won its prestigious Women in Innovation Award. The Award also sees recipients receive a cash injection of £50,000 and bespoke mentoring to scale up and bring to market their pioneering business ideas.
Kate Taylor, aged 38, from Wimborne in Dorset, established Evenly to address the lack of non-surgical solutions aimed at supporting the widespread and under-addressed issue of breast asymmetry. She is helping women whose breasts sizes may differ severely due to cancer surgeries or congenital conditions such as Poland Syndrome. Kate has developed a line of silicone Bra BalancersTM, designed to be worn in a bra on a woman’s smaller side. The silicone mimics the weight of the missing natural breast tissue, meaning the bra can hold and distribute the weight of the wearer’s breasts more evenly. She has also invented a pioneering patent-pending new bra design which she hopes to bring to market next year.
Kate Taylor is one of a network of 64 Women in Innovation Award winners who are developing pioneering innovations to tackle pressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges; from delivering precision medicine to underrepresented populations, to offering eco-friendly materials for the aerospace industry and creating cutting-edge digital educational tools.
Kate Taylor said: “I have extremely fond memories of my time at Wycombe High School and always felt supported and encouraged to do my best. It is a huge honour to win the Women in Innovation award and also to have the plaque installed at the school, which I hope will inspire many more female entrepreneurs and innovators to come.”
Wycombe High Headteacher, Nicola Renyard, added: “We are really proud of all the many former Wycombe High students who have gone on to achieve so many great things after leaving school. Kate is clearly one of them, which is we are so delighted that she chose Wycombe High School as the permanent home for her special purple plaque. It will now be a permanent symbol and a reminder of the many accomplishments of our alumnae as well as an inspiration to existing students”.
For more information about Evenly, visit evenlybreasts.com
