Fanya Ismail

Fanya Ismail is a Kurdish chemist and inventor. She is the Chief Executive and Founder of Sol-Gel Coatings & Advanced Materials. She was a winner of the 2019 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award for developing paper coating which can be used instead of plastics in coffee cups.
Early life and education
Ismail was raised in Kurdistan. She moved to the United Kingdom in 1995, where she was a graduate student at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). She worked on interactions between dye molecules and sol-gel matrices and was supervised by Nicholas J. Goddard.
Research and career
Ismail was award the 2019 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award. She creates environmentally friendly coffee cups using sol-gel materials made from small molecules. Sol-gel materials have glass-like properties at low temperatures. Ismail was part of the Next Gen Cup Challenge and started the business Sol-Gel Coatings & Advanced Materials after meeting an Enterprise Europe Network advisor, who supported her in working with the University of Greenwich on smart coatings. The Enterprise Europe Network also assisted her to apply for a £5,000 award from Innovate UK to launch her company.
Ismail's company was awarded £50,000 by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to go towards developing and marketing their product as part of International Women's Day. She was congratulated on the award by Business Secretary Greg Clark MP. She told Kent Online, "From not being able to say many words in English when I got to this country to getting this award, it's amazing."

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