Students head to US for entrepreneurial competition

A team of five students from the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship have been selected to take part in the Values and Ventures Business Plan Competition at the Neeley Entrepreneurship Center at TCU, Texas, in the US in April.

The students are taking the New Venture Creation class as part of the BA in Business Enterprise offered by the Hunter Centre. Over 20 business ideas were presented at a trade show event on February 18 run as part of the BA Business Enterprise's New Venture Creation class. After several lengthy debates, the Revive team emerged victorious as having the "best idea" with their idea for recycling coffee grounds for both large coffee chains and smaller independents.

They will head off to Texas for the competition which runs over April 19 and 20 with lecturer Dominic Chalmers from the Hunter Centre. The invitation-only competition has run since 2011 and was set up with the support of businesswomen Nancy Tartaglino Richards and Lisa Barrentine who believe in making money while creating meaning. In its inaugural year, just six schools were invited to participate but the competition has grown in both prestige and size, in 2012, welcoming teams from 22 universities in 2012.

Head of the Hunter Centre, Professor Sara Carter, said, "I'm delighted that Strathclyde was invited to participate in this prestigious student competition. All four of the finalist groups were very worthy, but the winning idea combined imagination and practicality. We wish the Revive team all the best for their participation at the international competition in Texas. Dominic Chalmers will be accompanying the students and providing on-site mentoring and support as the students compete against other international student groups."

Dominic added, "The trip to Texas will let the future generation of Scottish entrepreneurs compete against the best in America. I am confident they will hold their own."

Rachael Reid, on behalf of Team Revive said, "We are all so proud to be representing Strathclyde in Texas and can't thank our lecturers and peers enough for their continuous support. The standard of ideas throughout the class was so high this year, we were up against some brilliant, innovative ideas. The groups' ideas were excellently presented and obviously had a lot of time and effort put into it them.

"We're very thankful for this exciting opportunity and are going to do our best to bring back another award to add to Strathclyde's endeavours. We hope to do our University and peers proud!"

More than 100 students taking the New Venture Creation class worked in groups to come up with new ideas for business, many of which had a social aspect. Hunter Centre lecturer Dr Erik Monsen said, "The ideas were incredibly innovative. It was all part of the second year class for Business Enterprise and new to this year was the trade show. The teams had their own stands and could present as they thought best, with props of their choosing - we saw brochures, leaflets and websites all produced by the students at their own expense. It was fantastic to see the students' enthusiasm and creativity and everything worked great."

The students presented to their fellow classmates and staff of the Hunter Centre and used the event to get feedback, collect marketing information and carry out surveys on their ideas to fine tune their business ideas. While most of the students have been working on their idea from the beginning of the academic year, some of the students were new to the class either because they are taking it as an elective or they are from outwith the business school or an exchange student.

"These students did a great job," said Dr Monsen. "They have only been part of the class for five weeks but one of the top four teams - Hopa - was composed entirely of exchange students.

"There was a lot of social orientation to the ideas from the 22 teams. A good motivator this year was the Values and Ventures Competition which requires business ideas to have a social aspect so quite a number of ideas this year had just that."

The four shortlisted teams with what were judged to have the strongest business ideas were:

Revive's idea was to reuse the coffee grounds that are going to waste by recycling into fertiliser and selling it in garden centres. While it's not new technologically, many coffee shops are talking about but not much is being done. Revive has put a new twist on it and would be focussing on smaller coffee chains, using the "Revive" brand to indicate to people that their coffee grounds used in a particular shop will be recycled, similar to a "Fairtrade" symbol.

Hopa's idea was for people to donate food to the needy while in a supermarket - some of what they buy and pay for will go direct into a collecting point and the customers doing so would get reward points from the supermarket.

Slingaroo came up with an idea to stop babies in Africa dying of hypothermia. They would take sleeping bags left behind at music festivals, sterilise and recycle them and turn them into insulated slings.

Teldoc was a plan to take the concept of NHS 24 a stage further and instead of phoning for advice, patients would be able to speak with doctors via videoconferencing, which would be particularly useful for remote parts of the country, but would also enable patients to show what was wrong with them rather than just describing it over the phone. A similar system operates in the US and the idea is to introduce something like it here in the UK.

Another team which didn't make it to the final four but which has since gone on to have its own success is Touch of Scotland who comprised Lauren Hannah, Greg Johnstone, Joshua Su Yi Quan, Jennifer Lynn, Struan Mackie. Their idea of combining glass recycling and selling the recycled product at tourist locations, with a share of the revenue being donated to local causes, saw them get to the finals of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) competition.

Dr Monsen says the Business Enterprise programme isn't just for those who want to set up an entirely new business. "Some of the class will indeed set up in business, some will go back to their family-run business and introduce new ideas from what they've learned, while the rest will go into existing businesses but will be entrepreneurial within that larger company. Companies need to adapt to survive and prosper now and having employees with an entrepreneurial bent can only be a good thing. This programme gives students the confidence to grow small businesses or give vent to their ideas within an existing business."