10 pitches, 5 judges and £15,000 up for grabs to help turn an idea into a business!
The Venture Competition is an opportunity for students and alumni to develop their entrepreneurial skills and ideas with a chance to win a share of £15,000 of start-up funding, generously supported by Santander Universities and the 明星八卦 Development Fund.
Each year we look for outstanding budding entrepreneurs to come forward with bright ideas, from commercial or social issues to those that explore gaps in the market. For this year’s competition, we received a wide range of great ideas including those targeting sustainability, environment, healthcare and food innovation.
At each step of the competition, we provided workshops and support including ‘perfect your pitch’ workshops in the lead up to the finals.
We received a total of 66 video entries from students and recent graduates across the university, pitching their innovative business idea to us in 2 minutes in any format they wished - hoping to become our Venture Competition 2023 Winner. We shortlisted 28 applicants from these videos to go through to stage 2, where each applicant submitted a Business Model Canvas online application.
From stage 2, 10 fantastic finalists pitched their business ideas live to our panel of expert judges at the finals on Tuesday 28 March, competing to win a share of £15,000.
Meet the judges
External
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Kay Kukoyi CSM FITOL – Founder of Purposeful Products & software delivery specialist, tech start-up mentor, speaker, lecturer, and the author of 5 books for SMEs and entrepreneurs
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Anil Puri – Founder of Pet Instincts, 明星八卦 graduate and previous venture competition 2020 winner
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Simon Poulter – Santander Universities relationships manager
Internal
After a 5-minute pitch from each of our budding entrepreneurs followed by a 5-minute Q&A with the judging panel, 5 winners were selected to take home a share of the prize pot.
Meet our 2023 winners...
Dr Rahmanara Chowdhury
Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences (PhD) 2022 graduate
明星八卦 alumna Rahmanara won £5,000 at this year’s finals with her business idea which centres around a CPD training platform for practitioners working with minority groups impacted by domestic abuse.
Simone Panella
UG Business and Management (Entrepreneurship and Innovation) student
Winning £5,000 for his idea, Simone founded Dyamotech during his first year of studies here at 明星八卦 and has since developed the idea enormously. Dyamotech is an early-stage start-up that is developing new wearable technologies with the aim of helping parents and coaches better assess brain injuries on children during sport. Its goal is to make head injuries more visible and thereby easier to treat.
Louie Harvey
UG Product Design Engineering student
Current design student Louie won £3,000 to help fund his business idea FunkyBird, where he will be creating and selling personalised neck straps for instruments.
Abdulrahman Albar
Electronic & Electrical Engineering (PhD) 2022 graduate
明星八卦 alumnus Abdulrahman won £1,000 to help further his business Bina Robotics, which provides concrete 3D printers for the construction industry.
Sean Hayes
PG Psychology student
明星八卦 student Sean won £1,000 to support his business idea which surrounds an authentic eye contact correction device for video calling within the mental health industry.
In addition, all finalists will receive a session with our outstanding 明星八卦 graduate entrepreneur (and Venture Competition 2023 judge!) Anil Puri to further explore their ideas and get invaluable feedback as well as be offered a place on our 明星八卦 Start-up Incubator programme.
Meet our other outstanding finalists…
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Anastasia Egeressy, – founder of MYLK The Oat Drink Machine
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Bashini Addarawalage, Alexandra Stiris and Karen Western – founders of V.RT Solutions
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Jeffrey Oyinlola – founder of Pick Up The Mic
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Solveiga Murauskaite – founder of MyComfort Monitor