University of Bristol awards graduates £20,000 for pioneering business
University of Bristol awards graduates £20,000 for pioneering business
[Posted on 30 June 2010]
Two recent Mechanical Engineering students from the University of Bristol have won the University's annual New Enterprise Competition securing the top prize of £20,000.Rupert Baker and Alex Ross entered their business plan for Teamup, a pioneering sports web application that is free for users to access. Teamup facilitates sports by allowing consumers to easily join, create and share micro-events* in their local community. Teamup also allows providers of commercial services to manage and market their resources more effectively.
Teamup's core algorithm routes relevant sporting events, classes and venues to consumers based on their previous events, location, searches and their local social graph (who their friends are). Teamup's easy to use interface allows users to search and filter information based on activity type, location and time as well as providing a more intelligent way to create new events. Teamup allows consumers to make the most of their recreational time and allows providers of sports services to be more profitable.
Rupert and Alex were awarded the first prize of £20,000 at the University's prestigious Enterprise Dinner last night.
Lee Arromba, an undergraduate in the Department of Computer Science, was awarded £7,500 plus £3,000 worth of Intellectual Property advice from law firm Withers & Rogers, as a joint runner up. His business - Accelormatix - is software that allows a musician or band to create, manipulate and loop music, live, via simple movements or combination of movements (i.e. a clap or dance) using nothing other than 5 accelerometer sensors connected to a small micro-controller board sewn into the musician's garments. This would provide an affordable, transportable, light weight and durable alternative. Think of the way a rapper (such as Eminem) uses his hands to express the words he is speaking, imagine if he could magically seem to generate a drum beat with this movement.
Also winning £7,500 plus six months managed office space at the Bristol SETsquared Business Acceleration Centre was Sundio, for a social enterprise aimed at utilising innovative and sustainable solar refrigeration technology to improve the efficiency and profitability of farming in rural India. The brain child of University of Bristol undergraduate James Cornford (Department of Mechanical Engineering), the Sundio integrated cooling system will reduce waste and offer significant financial advantages to those in the agriculture industry, as well as offering employment to construction workers and administrators.
This year's competition entries were judged by a panel of experts from the sponsoring organisations including Bristol City Council, Business Link, Deloitte, EADS, IP Group, Motorola, Osborne Clarke, Santander, SETsquared Business Accleration Centre (Bristol), Withers & Rogers and Wyvern Seed Fund.
*micro-events - frequent informal gatherings to participate in sports (basketball, football, cycling, swimming, tennis etc) and activities (yoga, pilates, climbing etc).
For further information please contact:
Sadia Rooney
Research and Enterprise Development, University of Bristol
Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8676, Email:sadia.rooney@bristol.ac.uk
www.bristol.ac.uk/red