Strathclyde Business School student Rebecca Pick has been awarded first prize in the undergraduate Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards for her personal attack alarm business.
Rebecca, who graduated with first class honours in Marketing and Enterprise on July 9, studied Business Enterprise at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, and came up with the idea for her business Pick Protection and personal alarm, Personal Guardian, during her studies.
Student entrepreneurs across the UK were put forward for the awards which took place at Santander headquarters in London on July 2.
The six winning entries - three each of undergraduate and postgraduate - were selected from a shortlist of 10 entrepreneurial projects by a panel of judges representing several UK universities, business schools and Santander. Rebecca won £5,000, a certificate and a trophy at the awards ceremony.
During the event which hosted 48 VCs, principles and presidents from universities and colleges across the country, Nathan Bostock, chief executive officer at Santander UK stressed the importance of supporting Higher Education, saying, "There is no better way to invest in society than through education. Since 2007, Santander Universities has invested £40 million in the UK and this is expected to exceed £60 million by the end of 2016.
"The UK needs new ideas, state of the art products and innovative companies, and it's impressive to see so many students demonstrating a great deal of skill and initiative. The UK has one of the best higher education systems in the world and is the perfect breeding ground for entrepreneurs. At Santander we want to reward and encourage students to dare to invent, innovate, create and be entrepreneurial."
Rebecca said, "Winning the award was a fantastic surprise. It was a tough competition. The prize money will be very useful in helping get the alarm on the market and the contacts I made I think will be even more valuable to the business."
"Quite a bit of work had to go into the initial business plan but the hardest part was the 20-minute presentation, followed by 10 minutes of questions – there were some tough questions asked!"
Rebecca's device, the Personal Guardian, is due to become commercially available from October.
Pick Protection recently secured £60,000 funding from angel syndicate Gabriel Investments and Rebecca has also been supported in establishing her business by the Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network (SEN), a collaborative network which brings together the University's academic and professional services to support enterprise and commercialisation activity.
As part of this, she was chosen to take part in SEN's Rising Stars programme, which offers office space, dedicated mentoring and other networking opportunities to student and graduate entrepreneurs.
Rebecca said: "I've had fantastic support from Strathclyde, through the Hunter Centre and SEN, and from Gabriel. I was introduced to experienced business people who were well-placed to help and I hope to be in a good position to grow the business."