NEWS RELEASE
Which Big Idea is best?
26 January 2007
Budding business brains at the University of Abertay Dundee found out last night (Thursday 25th January) which of their big ideas were big enough to win big prizes.
“Aspire”, the University’s enterprise society, held its “Big Business Plan Competition” prizegiving ceremony in Abertay Student Centre.
“Big Business Idea” is a competition to encourage students or recent graduates from Abertay to submit their business ideas to a panel of judges.
The judges, drawn from business and academia, awarded the first prize of £150 to Ralph Wardlaw, fourth-year BSc (Hons) Information Systems, for his unique “Shot Saver” invention. The Shot Saver is an innovative handheld device that golfers can use to record, interpret and calculate all sorts of information about a round, and then transmit it via an in-built WAP modem to a dedicated website where the player can analyse it further. In addition to winning first prize, Ralph has been chosen to represent Abertay University at the Scottish Institute for Enterprise national student business plan competition, to be held later this year at the SIE annual summit in Dundee’s Caird Hall.
Second prize of £100 went to Catherine Brown, Post Graduate in Enterprise Creation, currently developing her new business “Solo Equestrian” in Abertay’s Embreonix graduate incubator. Catherine’s design for an innovative ‘horse-loading’ device allows horse owners to single-handedly load a horses into a horsebox. The patent-pending invention gently encourages the horse from its hind legs, which helps to considerably reduce stress for the animal and its handler. Catherine too has been chosen to represent Abertay at the SIE business plan competition.
Four other prizes, of £50 each, were awarded:
· Best School of Computing and Creative Technologies Idea: Embreonix students Matthew Callaghan and Alister McConnell for their mobile education download service;
· Best School of Social and Health Sciences Idea: Anoop Velath Kizaekka and Vijaya Shanti Munagapati (both MSc Bio informatics) for their Dental Tourism idea which proposes to offer package holidays to India, with the trips including cosmetic enhancements of teeth by specialist Indian Dentists;
· Best Dundee Business School Idea: Massoud Eyni, Ali Ouled and Farid Lahlou (all studying 3rd Year BA Honours Finance and Business) for their “Say it with a T-Shirt” business;
· Best Social Enterprise Idea: Luis Zulueta Canabal, Brais Seoane Lopez and Ismael Pan Sande (all studying different courses including 4th Year BA Business Administration, and BSc Sociology) for their innovative “Pay and Plug” concept – a patent-pending device featuring a regular socket with built-in timer and integrated paying system, which allows public areas such as airports and train stations to offer “Pay as you go” access to electricity on demand. Luis, Brais and Ismael have also been invited to represent Abertay University at the SIE business plan competition.
The ‘Big Business Idea’ Beermats and Bookmarks competition also saw a great number of entries. The Competition is based on Chris Southon and Chris West’s book, “The beermat entrepreneur” whereby students were able to put their own business ideas onto the back of a beermat or bookmark and then post them into the gold submission boxes at various locations around Abertay. After lengthy deliberations by the judges, Alan Neary overcame intense competition to win an iPod nano MP3 player for his innovative stationery vending machine, while Steven Hume received £40 in Tesco vouchers as runner-up, for his idea for a dyslexia dictionary.
This year’s judges included: Graeme Scott, director of the Tasting Rooms and Neil Bowie, Business Advisor at Embreonix.
The prizes were awarded at last night's event by John Scott on behalf of Business Gateway, Neil Bowie of Embreonix and Professor Mike Swanston whose organisations kindly donated prizes. Cash prizes were donated by the Scottish Institute for Enterprise.
The guest speaker for the evening was a Mr Ian Imrie, who as a young man built his Antiques business from scratch and has achieved significant success in his 40 years as an antiques expert. Now semi-retired, Mr Imrie, a fine artist, spends his time painting for exhibitions and commission.
Scott Sinclair, SIE intern at Abertay said: “This was a great competition, with lots of innovation and creativity on display and a huge variety of ideas competing for the awards. We are very grateful to the sponsors and supporting organisations, and especially to Ian Imrie for his presentation on the night, to Neil Bowie, Student Enterprise Officer at Abertay’s ‘Embreonix’ unit, to John Scott, small business development manager from Scottish Enterprise Tayside, and to Neeraj Agarwal, regional advisor for the SIE in Tayside.”
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More information: www.AspireSociety.co.uk
Scott Sinclair and Susan Scott – Scottish Institute for Enterprise Interns
T: 07921 974 715
Media enquiries: Kevin Coe
T: 01382 308223 M: 07850 904110