Linacre Alumna Dr Alexandra Littaye has recently won this year’s Oxford Idea Idol with her company Azure.
Dr Littaye founded Azure following her four years studying at Oxford, for her DPhil in Geography and the Environment. During her studies Alexandra spent 5 months in Mexico, waking up each morning to a warm comforting cup of ‘Pinole’.
Pinole is a blue corn and comes from an ancient Aztec recipe. It is true superfood; full of antioxidants and other health-benefitting properties, as well as being gluten free.
Azure aims to share Pinole with the world whilst supporting the indigenous communities and rural villages where it comes from. They will produce healthy snack bars of the blue corn, and aim to diversify in to a sports snack, supporting endurance performance for athletes.
Currently Azure is the only distributor of Pinole in the UK and Europe. The company will use the prize money to import the corn in bulk to aid manufacturing and distribution.
Each year Oxford Idea Idol choses six start-up companies from hundreds of applications, and asks them to pitch in front of an audience and judging panel. Azure were crowned the Grand Champions, and will receive a £5,000 cash prize, £4,000 in cloud hosting credits with a leading provider and 4 months of shared working space, worth £1000, working alongside Oxford Startup Incubator ventures at Oxford University Innovation.
Many congratulations to Dr Littaye, and all involved in Azure. Find out more about Azure here.
