Undergraduate Music student David Wexler has been awarded a £13,000 grant at the final of the inaugural Soyoye Technology Innovation Prize.

David was awarded the prize for his invention ‘Smart Gloves’, portable wearable technology that uses pressure and movement to allow wearers to learn and play music.

The prize, founded by King’s alumnus Babatunde Soyoye, Co-founder and Managing Director of Helios Investment Partners, supports the brightest tech talent from King’s and is awarded to a student, staff or alumnus on the Entrepreneurship Institute’s King’s20 accelerator programme. Fares Alaboud, a PhD student in Natural & Mathematical Sciences, was the night's other winner, taking home £20,000 for his venture The Medic App.

David and the four other finalists who pitched to an expert panel made up of Babatunde Soyoye, Ed Wray, the serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Steven Hayes, Managing Director at Beckhoff Automation Ltd, Julie Devonshire, Director of Entrepreneurship Institute, King’s College London, and Arthur Zargaryan, President of KCL Robotics Society.

David said “Being able to turn my passion for music into a business and share it with others is a dream come true. The money will help us refine our prototype and develop new sounds. We’ve come a long way in the short time the team have been together and we want to be the best in this market and explore its potential.

”The prize, founded by King’s alumnus Babatunde Soyoye, Co-founder and Managing Director of Helios Investment Partners, supports the brightest tech talent from King’s and is awarded to a student, staff or alumnus on the Entrepreneurship Institute’s King’s20 accelerator programme.