Paul McGinley, Business Enterprise and Marketing graduate, is on the shortlist for the Virgin 'Pitch to Rich' competition with his idea for a time-managing wifi router.
Pitch to Rich is an enterprise competition from Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson to get entrepreneurs with a business idea to come forward and pitch to him in a bid to win funding and progress their business idea.
There are three categories - New Things, Grow and Start-Up. Paul entered the 'New Things' category with his idea, Pyramid Wifi. Not just a wireless router, it is a digital activity tracker which shows where individuals spend their time online.
Paul said, "The internet has changed the way we learn, work, communicate and live. On average, we connect for 8 hours, 41 minutes each day which is 55% of our waking life – or 132 days each year. Pyramid is a wireless router but it's so much more. It’s a motivation machine – allowing you to kill notification overload, restrict social media binges or block distractions in a matter of seconds."
The prizes are tailored to each category to give them the best chance of moving forward. There will be one winner in each category and two runners-up who will share in the prizes. There are 150 shortlisted ideas and semi-finalists are now being selected. The ultimate winners will be selected and the live finale event in London on June 26.
Seedcamp will also be providing mentoring and support to the ten semi-finalists from the 'new things' category, with the possibility of claiming an invite to Seedcamp week in September.
Voting will reopen on June 2 at www.votepyramid.com