Launched every autumn, the annual competition is open to students, staff and recent graduates of the University. There is a prize fund of £35,000 along with free professional advice and managed office space at the Bristol SETsquared Centre, to help bring the winning ideas to the market place.
Designed to inspire new high-growth business ideas and entrepreneurial talent, the competition attracted stiff competition with entries from across the University. The seven finalists shortlisted to go through to the final stages of the competition were announced at an event held this week. The finalists will be invited to submit full business plans and winners of the competition will be revealed at the University’s Enterprise Gala Dinner on 29 June.
One shortlisted project, developed by James Cornford, an undergraduate student in the University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, is an innovative sustainable solar refrigeration technology designed to improve the efficiency and profitability of farming in rural India.
Another finalist, Professor Rona Campbell from the University’s Department of Social Medicine, put forward an intervention that reduces adolescent smoking take-up. The project, called DECIPHer-ASSIST, was developed in collaboration with Cardiff University.
Other shortlisted projects include:
- Automated Transportation – a technology which allows dynamic bus routing
- A system of power saving wireless networks
- A virtual looping and effects station designed for use in the music industry
- Software which allows children to create short animated films using their own toys
- A medical image overlay toolkit which will allow simultaneous visualisation of multiple images
The competition will also allow one student wild card entry to be determined by the University’s student-run enterprise body, Bristol University Business Angels [BUBA] from the unsuccessful applicants.
Dave Jarman, Enterprise Skills and Education Manager at the University, said: “This year we received 47 competition entries. The standard was extremely high and we are proud to be able to offer an entrepreneurial outlet to those with enterprising ideas.”
A panel of experts from the sponsoring organisations judge the best entries from those submitted. Sponsors of the event include, Bristol City Council, Business Link, Deloitte, EADS, IP Group, Osbourne Clarke, Withers & Rogers, Motorola, Santander, SETsquared Business Acceleration Centre and the Wyvern Seed Fund.
During the shortlisting event, three new members were also inducted into the University’s Enterprise Roll of Honour, established to recognise and celebrate the talents of the University’s alumni who have set up successful businesses.
These included Dan Turner, an alumnus of the University (BSc Physics, 1988), and co founder of ByBox Holdings Ltd, a logistics and supply chain management company. In 2008, ByBox was the winner of the Deloitte EMEA Fast 50 award for the fastest-growing private-technology company in Europe.
Other Roll of Honour inductees include Eldar and Roy Tuvey. Eldar and Roy Tuvey are brothers who graduated from the University of Bristol with BSc Economics (1992 and 1996 respectively). The Tuveys are co-founders of ScanSafe, an Internet security company designed to keep malware off corporate networks and allow businesses to control and secure the use of the Internet.