Bristol students win inaugural ‘enterprise varsity’ competition

Parijat Kumar presents the winning team's ideas

Team members Charlie Robinson (left) and Ali Wallace present the winning ideas

1 March 2010

Students from the University of Bristol won the first ‘Inter-University Business Challenge’ held on 17 February at Deloitte’s Bristol offices on Temple Quay.

Teams from the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England took part in the challenge to make the Bristol city region more attractive to graduate business start-ups. The teams were asked to make proposals for spending a fictional £10 million government budget on start-up support for graduates.

After a welcome from Mark Hill, who heads up Deloitte’s Entrepreneurial Business Group, teams spent the afternoon exploring the issues of business start-up and the retention of graduates in the region. After talking to local experts, they devised innovative solutions which they presented to a panel of judges for a cash prize.

The event was sponsored by Deloitte and Veale Wasbrough Vizards and supported by Martin Coulthard of the Bath & Bristol Enterprise Network, Mark Dunn of BusinessLinkSW and Nick Sturge of the SETsquared Business Acceleration Centre based at the University of Bristol.

The winning team comprised Economics and History student Parijat Kumar, Charlie Robinson (Economics), Ali Wallace (History of Art) and Xi Chen (Accounting and Finance). Their scheme sought to overcome graduate fears of start-up failure by creating a Teach First-style scheme in which major employers funded a two-year window for graduates to start their own businesses (in which those employers had a shareholding) before either continuing to run their own business or taking their business experience into a bigger firm.

It was a great opportunity for the students to meet local business expertise and think about their own options for entrepreneurial careers.