Students win enterprise prize
Wednesday 3 August 2011
Last week six enterprising undergraduate students from the University battled to win a share of £5,000 from an expert panel at the inaugural ‘Pitching4Projects’ competition.
The evening started with a talk from one of the judges, Simon Hulme, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Kingston University. Simon has founded two businesses and spoke on the ups and downs and lessons learned during his business life.
The talk was followed by the pitching competition itself. Each student made a five minute pitch which were followed by questions from the panel.
The pitches covered a wide variety of different subjects: from theatrical productions, a food delivery business and a video design collaboration website, to Ugandan biogas generators, a sports training portal and a cow! The support of a cow is intended to provide a more nutritious diet for children in a village in Uganda.
In commenting to the students afterwards, judge Anne Kavanagh of Kavanagh Communications, said that the panel was most impressed by the pitches and presentations and that the students were all a great example of what can be achieved with passion and confidence about a well thought out proposition.
Prizes of £2,000 each were awarded to Chris Medley of the Surrey Theatrical Society and to Mohammed Randeree of Surrey SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) for the biogas systems.
An additional donation of £1,200 was made by judge and Director of Surrey Research and Enterprise Support, Keith Robson, to Lucy Nathanson to support two cows for Uganda.
Mr Robson commented, “I thought the quality of the presentations was truly excellent and I am sure we will run the competition again next year.”
Nigel Biggs, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Surrey, will now mentor the winners and help them put their awards into practice.
