York student Louise Flower

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!

The Culture Business

Students learned first hand about the rare book industry

How is literature marketed? Who controls its value? To what extent do authors cater for an audience? These are just some of the questions posed by ‘The Culture Business’, Prof Jane Moody’s module for second year English and Related Literature students. Providing an academic approach to the publishing, bookselling and print media industries, the module offers students a chance to gain an insight into one of the most popular yet competitive industries around. Looking at works from the Romantic period to the present day, students are invited to study the ways in which authors have interacted with the contemporary literary marketplace.

As a result of York WRCETLE sponsorship, students taking the module in the summer term had the opportunity to meet key industry players and find out how they achieved success. The literary—or culture—industry is notoriously difficult to break into and thus the chance to learn from people directly involved was invaluable. Isobel Dixon, from Blake Friedman, provided an insight into the importance of the literary agent in today’s publishing industry. Lisa Chaney, a successful biographer, inspired potential authors in the group when she talked through the research and creative processes that go into the creation of a successful biography.

The module countered the notoriously metropolitan nature of the literary industry through trips to some of York’s culture businesses. Of particular note was a visit to Spelman’s, the renowned rare and second-hand book shop on Micklegate. Students gained an insight into independent book selling and were treated to anecdotes about literary finds by the owner.  A visit to the York branch of Borders provided a more modern example of bookselling. Students learnt about the marketing of books, and were given a sneak peak at the Amazon Kindle e-reader before it hit the shop floor.

The module proved a huge success.

Hear from the students and their tutor first hand:

Article written by Helen Citron, originally published in Enterprise focus.

York graduate makes it easier to be green

Kenneth Cheung

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.

Langwith Arts: a blank canvas for enterprising York students

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.

But since then, things have begun to snowball.

Leeds launches ‘Enterprise Exchange’

Leeds CETLE once again celebrated a successful open day on the 3rd October. The event was extremely well attended with many new faces and returning students alike. It appeared that many students had used the summer to develop their enterprising ideas and were exited by the resources that were available to help them while developing their business ideas.

This event also attracted representatives from all different branches of the University of Leeds. The careers centre came to discuss how SPARK could help our students and the Enterprise and Innovation Office informed students of the business funding opportunities available to them.

All that attended the Open Day were invited to take part in a competition which involved guessing which out of 12 unusual business case studies were actually real or fake. The winner, Junfei Hu, got to take home a huge box of chocolate fingers.

This occasion also marked the launch of our ‘Enterprise Exchange’ event which invites students to come and drop in every Friday to attend ideas and innovation discussions. In addition to this between 12pm- 2pm we offer a relaxed setting for students to network with others who have an interest in enterprise. Once a month we offer a free lunch to all that attend the networking session which has proved popular in the past and we hope that the new students will make use of this event this year.

The event proved a real success, with lots of students now aware of the facilities and services on offer as well as creating a real buzz around student enterprise in general, a great start to the year!

Leeds Launches SimVenture Competition

SimVenture, helping students to learn about enterprise. Image from http://www.simventure.co.uk

SimVenture is the award-winning business simulation game which allows the game player to gain valuable experience of the trials and tribulations of setting up and run a company. SimVenture offers a stimulating and risk free environment to learn about all aspects of running a business and being entrepreneurial.

The Leeds Enterprise Zone has set up a SimVenture suite, with this exciting new program running on five machines, open to all students.

As part of the new SimVenture suite, the Enterprise Zone are launching a SimVenture competition, where participants will run their company for six months and attempt to make the most profit. Every month at the Enterprise Exchange networking lunch, the student with the most profit will win £50!