Louise Flower, a third-year student from the University of York, has secured a place in a global enterprise competition involving 8 entrepreneurs from around the UK. The Global Start Up Challenge is run in conjunction with Alibaba, the world’ts largest online meeting place for Entrepreneurs and SME’s, and the second largest IPO to Google.
Louise has been selected to represent Yorkshire in the challenge, and—with her initial £1000 investment—has set up her own trading business which sells creative, useful items to students and small businesses.
As the only student in the competition and also the youngest competitor, Louise has decided to focus on goods for the student market. She has sourced her products through Alibaba and feature an emergency charger (compatible with most portable electronics including phones, mp3 players and cameras) and a new and exciting product: the Mobile Note Taker.
Louise's primary product, the Mobile Note Taker
As her primary product, the Mobile Note Taker is an innovative and highly useful item aimed primarily at the student market. The judges were very impressed by this choice of product as it satisfies a clear gap in the market, but is not yet widely distributed in the UK. It works just like an ordinary pen, but whilst making paper notes the pen also captures the page digitally. The student can record up to 100 pages of A4 notes or drawings, which can later be downloaded onto a laptop to be stored, edited and converted into standard text!
Louise also plans to sell this new product to retail outlets and small businesses. The pens will be on sale at the University of York for a promotional price until the end of January, and will be widely available online and at York Student Market.
Louise is a member of the York Entrepreneurs’ Society, as well as a student intern at York WRCETLE. You can track Louise’s progress online as she implements her business strategy and begins trading between October and the end of January 2010. The final winner of the competition will receive a £10, 000 business grant to invest in the start-up company at the end of the trading period. To track Louise’s progress online, and to vote for her business, visit www.globalstartupchallenge.com!
To help English Literature students consider their future employment options, the careers service has set up an innovative new project: The E-zine. Student teams compete through two pitching sessions for £2000 of CETLE-provided funds in order to design, write, launch and distribute an electronic (online) magazine, or e-zine. The aim of the project is to create a specialist publication but also to explore the employment possibilities that an English Literature degree provides.
The Career Service’s Kate Copland is behind the project. She says that the idea for the project arose when ‘careers advisers noticed that many English students feel unsure about what career path to take’ and ‘wanted to do something especially for English students to help them engage with the idea of career planning, but also give them an opportunity of developing more employability skills through participating in the project’.
The project allows participants to develop a comprehensive array of skills. As well as journalists, each team requires project, finance, marketing, IT and events managers. This builds skills in areas such as budget management and business planning which would not normally be developed within the student’s degree course. Participants also have the opportunity to attend teaching sessions from industry professionals and are advised how best to incorporate their new-found skills into their CV.
To hear more about the project from the 2008 student team, and project developer Kate Copland, please watch our feedback video.
Tony Ward, York director of WRCETLE has lead the development of ‘Enterprise’, an enterprise-based curriculum module for Engineering students. The module uses the stage-gate model to lead students through the process of developing an idea commercially, from concept to business plan.
In the video below, Tony gives an overview of how the module was created, and what students’ first impressions have been.
One interesting feature which sets this module apart from others, however, is the way in which students have been engaged—the module was partly developed by students. Anna Bramwell-Dicks discusses the module which she co-developed—and sat!
To take a traditional viewpoint, it might seem odd for a student to develop a module—let alone take it afterwards. However, by embracing the skills which students possess—not to mention their unique insight—to create something in an innovative way, this module is unarguably deserving of its title, Enterprise!
WRCETLE embeds enteprise into the curriculum by developing modules in partnership with departments and members of academic staff. If you are interested in curriculum development opportunities at Leeds, Sheffield or York, please contact WRCETLE.
York Biochemistry graduate Kenneth Cheung is receiving media coverage for his social enterprise, BEEcycle Ltd, and its range of products and services, which make it easier to recycle food waste.
Kenneth founded BEEcycle after graduating from the University of York, where he showed a keen interest in enterprise. The company produces a range of high-tech products to help people compost and recycle food waste, including the OvO—a self-watering plant pot which produces its own compost naturally! BEEcycle also engages businesses and the community through a recycling education programme.
With environmental issues more important than ever, BEEcycle is a promising and exciting new company—Kenneth has been interviewed on BBC Radio, and was a finalist in the Enterprising Young Brits competition—but what sets it apart is its combination of technical knowledge (after graduating from York, Kenneth went on to win a business competition held by Lancaster Environment Centre, where he founded the business with their support) with practical sense. With continued success Cheung has recently won the top prize in the Manchester heat for The Pitch 2009, and will compete for a business support package worth £50 000 in the final round in November. Many people are put off home recycling because they perceive it to be inconvenient and difficult—regardless of whether this is well-founded, it is clear that one way into the home recycling market is through accessibility. Composters which don’t smell or require sorting of waste, and self-watering plant pots may well attract custom from the 70% of households who do not currently recycle. Similarly, the lesson plans and interactive section on BEEcycle’s website make it easy for primary schools and parents to provide children with fun environmental education.
With fears over the fates of community recycling programs in the current economic climate, it is easy to be pessimistic about reducing waste—but as a social enterprise with commercial promise, the future is surely green for BEEcycle.
Painting by Richard Barnes, from exhibition entitled "Reflections on a Voyage"
Langwith Arts is the brainchild of Dr John Issitt, Provost of Langwith College. In a bid to redevelop his college as a dynamic and cultural hub, 2006 saw the first Langwith Arts Festival – a series of student-organised events over a May bank holiday weekend with a theme, ‘movement’. A varied programme incorporated Dance, Pantomime, Afro-Caribbean and Juggle Societies, a Jazz band, a Barbershop quartet and a group of break dancers. It was novel and well attended, and Issitt’s hopes seemed to be coming into fruition.
CETLE helps students to get involved with enterprise
The University of York has an excellent reputation for teaching and learning across a range of academic disciplines so it was logical for us to approach the growing demand for enterprising graduates by looking at our existing strengths. We believe that enterprise and innovation are concepts that are too important to be confined to business schools and York is a leader in developing teaching and learning based firmly in the curriculum of traditional academic subjects. Activity in this area got underway in 1999 with the support of the then DTI’s ‘Science Engineering Challenge’ funds which enabled science academics to develop teaching that asked students to consider the knowledge and skills of ‘how to get things done’ in the application of their discipline. Read the rest of this entry »
The IBM Universities Business Challenge is the premier business simulation competition for all university undergraduates in the UK who want to have a life-changing experience. The IBM UBC is a true learning experience for all those who enter. Commencing in October each year, the competition helps students improve their decision-making skills, develop their team-working abilities and increase their knowledge of key business areas such as marketing, finance, production and human resources.
Last year saw two of Sheffield’s three teams get through to the semi-final stage of this competition. Due to this success in 2008 we have entered six teams and so far all the teams appear to be doing well. We will have to wait and see how well the competition continues to go for them. Good luck to Sheffield!
Yet another successful Business Creation Competition this year! A panel of judges sat and listened to seven companies pitching to win the coveted prize in July 2008.
With Enterprise week looming just around the corner – what better way than to hold the award ceremony in conjunction with Enterprise Week.
This year the award ceremony was a celebration of several achievements at the University of Sheffield:-
The final of the Business Creation Competition was held in July with seven companies vying for the judges’ marks. After some deliberation, the panel awarded 1st prize of £3000 to Ike Sikuade (one of our own Interns) with her company The Colour Couture (sells luxury handmade jewellery and contemporary colour bead gemstone jewellery) and 2nd prize of £2000 went to Fiona Wilson of emmersons Ltd (Information Management and Knowledge Management). In 3rd place was Bettina Yarde with her company Morgan Dias Immigration Consultants.
The celebration continued with the outstanding achievement of Sheffield SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) who this year have become European Champions after winning the SIFE European Symposium which was held in London. This is an annual competition which was an opportunity for nine European teams, including Sheffield, to showcase their work in the local community to a European audience.
Finally, we acknowledged the success of Tom Garwood, a student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who was named most enterprising student in the Midlands after winning 1st prize in the Regional Shell STEP Awards.
Posted by White Rose CETL Enterprise 
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