Innovating Future Business is an enterprise competition encouraging innovative, forward-thinking business ideas, open to students from Alliance universities.
With over 1,000 graduate start-ups coming from Alliance graduates each year, supporting student enterprise is a core part of what Alliance universities do. Equipping students with an ethos of entrepreneurship is essential for facing challenges within a global labour market.
We have partnered with the University of Salford to give budding entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their business ideas to a panel of investors for a chance to win cash prizes from a prize pool of £5,000. Entrants to Innovating Future Business will gain real-life experience and receive feedback from industry experts on how to make their business a success. Read how Salford’s previous competition helped 2014 winner Vinejuice.
Entrants will pitch their business ideas at the University of Salford’s MediaCityUK campus on 10 May 2017 in front of a live audience. Read a short introduction to the entrepreneurs and their business ideas below:
Buffalo Adventures
Finlay Thorburn – University of Brighton
Buffalo Adventures is a Ugandan travel company encompassing adventure, work experience and social impact. Finlay started the business while living in Africa in response to difficulties he experienced while travelling the continent. Find out more about Buffalo Adventures: buffaloadventures.co.uk
Compact Gyms Ltd
Andrew Marshall – Nottingham Trent University
Compact Gyms provides functional, high-quality home gym equipment that folds down after use. Andrew’s business idea is aimed at consumers looking for convenient solutions to exercising in limited spaces at home.
Dinky Do Dah!
Ashema Edwards – Kingston University
Dinky Do Dah! is a pop-up nail bar exclusively for children. It uses age appropriate products and designs to deliver a fun service at parties and events. Ashema will pitch the company’s new nail art patches at the competition. Visit dinkydodah.com to see their fun designs.
Energy Fairies Ltd
Nadine Griffin, Rhianne Griffin, Rechelle Davis – Liverpool John Moores University
Energy Fairies Ltd are an all-female, family-run company focusing on renewable fuels. The company aims to help save energy, lower emissions and tackle fuel poverty. The product that they will pitch at Innovating Future Business 2017 is an adapted thermal plantation shutter that provides an affordable solution to heat insulation. Go to Energy Fairies’ Facebook page to keep up-to-date with their work.
Health+
Charlie Hesse – Teesside University
Health+ is an app which enables users to cross-check their medical prescriptions with NHS and eMC drug dtabases. The app aims to give patients greater detail about their medication and improve understanding, reducing the number of inquiries made to GPs. Health+ is the 2016 winner of the NHS South Tees Health Hack competition and Charlie plans to release the app to the general public to improve patient experience. Follow Health+ on Twitter for more news on the app.
ImpulseNorth
Dan Collins, Will Taylor, Aaron Broadhurst – University of Central Lancashire
The group have created a web-based platform to keep university students up-to-date on the latest events locally. ImpulseNorth will enable local businesses to promote their events and services through the platform, as well as developing the student community at the University of Central Lancashire. To see how the group are doing this, visit: impulsenorth.com
Ocean Spark Studios Ltd
Zachray Cundall, Ellie Brown, Helen Andrzejowska, Daniel Jones – University of Huddersfield
Video game design company, Ocean Spark Studio Ltd, was formed by four third-year games design students during an enterprise placement year. They will pitch their current title, Tetra – Elemental Awakening, a third-person roleplaying tower defence game that blends various genres with the capacity for future expansion. Visit their website to learn more and see how you can trial the video game here: playtetra.com
Pathways
Zahid Tapas, Zeyad Golita, Syed Hussain, Sonia Hamied, Suhail Patel – University of Salford
The group’s smartphone application uses iBeacon technology to allow patients, visitors and staff to navigate hospitals with ease. Pathways is a smart solution to missed appointments due to patients struggling to find their way through the vast layout inside hospitals. It can also assist locum and new staff. Winners of the University of Salford local business competition, the group – which consists of three NHS staff members – will pitch the app at Innovating Future Business 2017. Follow their success on Twitter.
Texmo
Nasir Kunduzi, Brendan Spaun – University of Hertfordshire
Texmo is a cloud-based service aimed at the tailoring industry to provide an interface between actual work done and invoice generation. This B2B service will increase efficiency in the sector and is currently being developed with plans to be introduced in major retailers and tailoring firms. Discover how Texmo is modernising the tailoring industry online: texmo.co.uk
The Maker’s Guild
Ming Wu, Sam Asiri – University of Portsmouth
With access to a range of traditional machinery and digital fabrication services, the Maker’s Guild provides dedicated and flexible, creative work spaces to artists, designers, hobbyists and the wider community. The initiative carries out workshops offering tailored creative engagement sessions as well as contributing to major large scale community projects. To find out about this growing Portsmouth-based business, click here.
The Sapphire Laboratory
Sapphire Lacey-Wilson – Coventry University
Named after its creator, the Sapphire Laboratory is a cosmetic company that allows customers to personalise their own allergy-free products. The service gives complete control to the customer over what goes into their products, as well as access to a range of skin-loving, natural ingredients. Sapphire will pitch for investment in her cosmetic company at Innovating Future Business 2017.
Register online to watch students pitch their business ideas to the panel investors on Wednesday 10 May 2017 at the University of Salford’s MediaCityUK campus. Tweet @UniAlliance #UAfuturebiz
