University Alliance held its inaugural student enterprise competition, Innovating Future Business, on Wednesday 10 May. The competition, organised in partnership with the University of Salford and held at the university’s MediaCityUK campus, showcased innovative, forward-thinking business ideas from students across Alliance universities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ryiHKWpE4
Budding entrepreneurs representing 11 Alliance institutions pitched their business ideas to a panel of investors for a chance to win cash prizes from a prize pool of £5,000. The contestants had to convince representatives from the ANS Group, Cariocca Enterprises, Marketing Signals, Wakelet, and Web Applications UK, why their business was worth investment in front of a live audience. There was a great reaction on social media, with the event hashtag #UAfuturebiz achieving over a million impressions on Twitter.
The winners:
- Ocean Spark Studios (University of Huddersfield)
- Texmo (University of Hertfordshire)
- Buffalo Adventures (University of Brighton)
- Dinky Do Dah (Kingston University)
- Pathways (University of Salford)
- Health+ (Teesside University)
- Compact Gyms (Nottingham Trent University)
Runners-up:
- The Sapphire Laboratory (Coventry University)
- Energy Fairies (Liverpool John Moores University)
- ImpulseNorth (University of Central Lancashire)
- The Maker’s Guild (University of Portsmouth)
Ocean Spark Studios from the University of Huddersfield
Four video game design students from the University of Huddersfield won a total of £1,150 from four investors for their business Ocean Spark Studios. Zachray Cundall, Ellie Brown, Helen Andrzejowska and Daniel Jones showed off footage from their roleplaying video game Tetra – Elemental Awakening.
Nasir Kunduzi and Brendan Spaun of Texmo
University of Hertfordshire student, Nasir Kunduzi, along with business partner, Brendan Spaun, impressed four of the investors to win a total of £1,100 for their cloud-based service aimed at the tailoring industry, Texmo.
Finlay Thorburn of Buffalo Adventures
Final year Product Design BSc student at the University of Brighton, Finlay Thorburn, won £1,000 from four investors for his Ugandan travel company, Buffalo Adventures.
Ashema Edwards of Dinky Do Dah
Kingston University’s Ashema Edwards gave a compelling pitch for her kids nail-art company, Dinky Do Dah. Ashema won over two of the investors for a sum of £750.
Pathways from the University of Salford
The University of Salford’s very own Pathways saw one investor award £500 to Zahid Tapas, Zeyad Golita, Syed Hussain, Sonia Hamied, and Suhail Patel for their hospital navigation app.
Charlie Hesse of Health+
Health+, an award-winning NHS medical app developed by Teesside University student Charlie Hesse, won £250.
Andrew Marshall of Compact Gyms
£250 was also presented to Andrew Marshall representing Nottingham Trent University, who pitched his home gym equipment company, Compact Gyms.
You can read all about the winners and runners-up at Innovating Future Business 2017 and their business proposals here,
