Winners 2007/08
BUSINESS IDEAS BECOME REALITY
Business dreams took a step closer to becoming reality at the University of Plymouth’s Business Ideas Challenge Awards Evening 22 nd May 2008.
A grueling four months of hard work paid off for the finalists as the impressive £42,000 prize package was divided amongst the category winners at the event hosted by the Tamar Science Park.
Three University of Plymouth students have scooped top prize in Business Ideas Challenge, a competition aimed at finding Plymouth’s most innovative business idea.
Alexandra Matthews, Chris Browne and Ella Romanos, whose business idea, 'Level Harmony' stole the show. The three have recently completed their degrees in Digital Art and Technology and came up with their business idea, for a computer game that helps players to relax and reads their biometric information as they do so, as part of their course.
As a result of winning the competition, their business, Yoghurt Games, will receive a tailor-made business support package.
Ella, 24, who lives in Hyde Park, said: “We developed it as part of the games module on our course. We had to develop a working prototype with a business model. When we finished it, our head of school liked our idea and we decided to enter the competition – I’m amazed to have won.”
Alexandra, 23, from Pennycomequick, said: “I’m looking forward to having a long holiday now that we’ve won. We would like to develop the business. We’ll try to get some investors and see where it goes.”
Chris, 22, who is originally from Knutsford, in Cheshire, said: “We wanted to do something different by focusing on relaxing through games. It was a great surprise to have won – it hasn’t sunk in yet but I think it will do soon.”
The evening also saw other prizes being handed out.
The University of Plymouth first prize was also awarded to Yoghurt Games, with second prize being awarded to Jonathan Gillham, Louisa Tee, Tom McAdam and Richard James for their idea about developing affordable technology to allow amateur sporting events to record timings in a similar way to professional events. In third place in this category was Russell Lloyd for his Eco Filtration Solutions business.
Second place in the Combined Universities in Cornwall award went to Gail Ward for her Silver Ribbon Aroma Remedies idea. First prize was won by Sally Pawson for her innovative, interactive jewellery.
The University Partner Colleges Award was won by Duchy College students Rob Stanley and Dave Downie for their business idea golf research and marketing company.
The Creative Award was won by Karol Kwiatek for his interactive panoramic guides. The Environmental Award was won by Russell Lloyd for Eco Filtration Solutions and the Social Enterprise Award was won by Danielle Woodbridge-Johns for Artinker Media.
Last year’s winner, Professor Steve Rowland, gave an update on how his business idea – to extract products suitable for use in the pharmaceutical industry from waste matter produced by the oil industry. He explained that his idea has now been patented and he has won a total of £250,000 of investment from five oil companies to explore the idea further.
He urged this year’s winners to be tenacious and to enjoy the experience.
Dr Susan Boulton, Knowledge Exploitation Manager for the University of Plymouth, said: “Judges found choosing a winner in all of the different award categories extremely difficult. All of the finalists showed clear evidence of exactly the sort of enterprise and innovation that this competition aims to find and all of them handled the Dragon’s Den aspect of the competition well – showing commitment to their ideas and a strong sense of the commercial possibilities involved.
“The eventual winner, Yoghurt Games, was very well-deserved. Ella, Chris and Alexandra have come up with an idea that has a lot of potential in what is a huge growth area.”
Thanks goes to all of the sponsors whose financial and service provision support made this year's competition possible - and business ideas a reality.
Individual prizewinners for 2008 were:
|
University of Plymouth First Prize and Overall Winner –
Alexandra Matthews, Ella Romanos and Chris Browne with ‘LevelHarmony’
Yoghurt Games’ flagship product is Level Harmony, a PC-based real-time 3D game inspired by Marble Madness and Journey to Wild Divine.
The hook is classic puzzle game play with innovative bespoke hardware and intuitive input.
The aim of the player is to increase their control of the ball and skill level to gain the most points in the shortest number of levels. Input is via a tilting device and a biofeedback device. |
|
|
|
University of Plymouth Second Prize –
Jonathan Gillham, Louise Tee, Richard James and Tom McAdam with ’RFID’
This innovative product allows amateur sporting competitions to be automatically timed in the same way as their professional counterparts at an affordable cost
|
|
University of Plymouth Third Prize and Cowlin’s Environmental Prize –
Russell Lloyd with ‘Eco Filtration Solutions’
Recent EU Legislation has outlawed the use of solvents harmful to the environment. Industry used these solvents for material processing. A new range of solvents exist but cleaning these solvents has posed a big challenge.
During the past two years development work carried out by Eco FS Ltd has provided a novel and innovative solution. Using recent advances in membrane filtration technology the solvents have proven to be recyclable.
The Eco FS solution combines recent technological advances in solvents and membrane filtration to ensure that industry in the UK and Europe can comply with EU legislation whilst also making huge cost savings. |
|
|
|
University of Plymouth Partner Colleges Prize – Robert Stanley and Dave Downie with ‘Golf Intel’
Golf Intel is a fledgling company started by Rob Stanley and Dave Downie, mature students from Duchy College European Tournament Golf Academy. Golf Intel provides relevant, specific intelligence to the golf market, as well as offering pertinent work placement opportunities for students within golf related education. |
|
CUC Cornwall First Prize - Sally Pawson with ‘Play with me’ interactive jewellery
Sally has created a range of innovative designer products, join the dots wallpaper, greetings cards and interactive jewellery as part of her final degree project in Contemporary Crafts at University College Falmouth.
She is looking to expand the range to furniture and fabrics and market the work under her own brand name as a professional designer maker.
The diversity of products makes it suitable for several different markets. Contemporary craft galleries and trade fairs, specialised jewellery galleries and exhibitions, designer object shops and gift shops. |
 |
 |
CUC Cornwall Second Prize - Gail Ward with ‘Silver Ribbon Aroma Remedies’
Gail offers a range of alternative therapies, advice and supplementary products, as well as producing her own hand blended range of therapeutic aroma remedies and aftercare products “Silver Ribbon Aroma Remedies”.
Gail has identified a gap in the market and believes her unique selling points to be the of provision of a professional service together with affordable ethical, bespoke therapeutic after care products and longer than average treatment times |
|
Creative Prize – sponsored by HBG Ltd – Karol Kwiatek with ‘creating interactive panoramic guides’
Spherical panoramas give the opportunity to see the whole object in one photo and a computer is the best tool to present panoramas. It is an incredible way to show a city to someone who has never visited it. This is also an amazing way of presenting changes to people who left a place many years ago. This is a very moving method to render places especially for people who do not have possibility to come back to the place where they were brought up and they still miss it, but they cannot visit it because of difficulties in movement or travelling. The application of spherical Panoramas could be also used in reconstruction of monuments |
 |
 |
Social Enterprise Award –
Danielle Woodbridge-Johns with ‘Artinker Media’
Artinker Media are committed to an ethic of developing a range of products 'designed by our customers for our customers’ which encourage art and creativity through learning within the community, where possible using green and recycled products. Artinker will enrich the lives of those who have a share in it, and help the underprivileged to achieve what they otherwise could not. |
Congratulations to all our winners !
Call our Business Enquiry Service on 0800 052 5600
or submit an enquiry
|
