9th February 2010 - Student Enterprise Challenge 2010

News and Events

Student entrepreneurs do it again

Wed, Feb 10, 2010

The ideas were as diverse as they were ambitious. From a customisable fashion bag to a computer game to teach children about racism, students excelled themselves again this year with the extraordinary range of their schemes for making it as an entrepreneur at stage 1 of the Enterprise Challenge Awards.

With over 50 original concepts, entries were significantly up on last year and competition was fierce. Judges selected winners from in one of three categories - Arts, Services and Technology. Winners received £1000 each prize money and runners up received £500. The cash prize is designed to help them develop their ideas for stage two of the competition later this year.

Top prizes went to Eve Bellamy for a unique water filtration system, to Nikki Maynard for her original black cat good luck ‘dolls’ and to Oliver Goodman and Daryl Summers for their website to help students find accommodation.

Oliver and Daryl, the students behind www.findstudenthouses.com, said their idea was born out of their own challenge to find student housing for their second year at University in Portsmouth. Oliver, who is studying BSc Property Development, said that feedback from local estate agents that they wouldn’t be taken seriously only spurred them on.

He said: “Finding a house can be stressful and time consuming and having been through it ourselves we’ve been able to create a product to tap into a market where we know there’s already a demand. The prize money has come at just the right time for us because we’re hoping to officially launch the site in the next few weeks.”

The Annual Enterprise Challenge Awards are organised by the University’s Centre for Enterprise which aims to inspire students to learn and succeed in entrepreneurship through developing enterprise skills and experience.

The first stage of the awards is also a chance for competition entrants to network with an audience of University staff and members of the local business community and to hear some inspirational talks by successful entrepreneurs. This year there was a lively presentation from former participant in series five of the BBC show The Apprentice, Kimberly Davis, who runs her own successful marketing company.

She asked the audience to imagine how their lives would look in five, ten and 20 years time if they didn’t follow their dream and then picture how different things would be if they pursued their ambition instead. She said “You can get to anyone with seven phonecalls and knowing the right thing to say.”

The awards ceremony was opened by a champion of the Portsmouth Centre for Enterprise (PCE), PhD student Mitu Khandaker who recently spent six months in the USA on a Kaufman Global Scholarship which nurtures entrepreneurial talent. She said that the experience changed her life forever and she owed everything to the support she received from PCE.

She said “The University doesn’t just have a Centre for Enterprise, it IS a centre for enterprise.”