Announcing the Finalists in the Engineers in Business Champion of Champions 2021 Competition

Student innovators from ten universities have been selected to pitch their business ideas in the dragons’ den style Engineers in Business Champion of Champions Final on 22 October 2021. 

Engineers in Business Fellowship (EIBF) received a stunning range of business ideas from student innovators at universities throughout the UK, giving the judges the tough task of reducing these down to the ten finalists. The finalists will compete for a share of the £15,000 prize fund to help them develop their ideas. Prizes also include entrepreneur and business mentoring, CV packages from Purple CV, a leading CV writing company and innovation books from Cambridge University Press.

The Finalists

Aberystwyth University – Revolancer

University of Birmingham – AuraGen

University of Exeter – Zama Digital

University of the Highlands and Islands – BoxFluence

Imperial College London – Paige

Nottingham Trent University – ChangeXtra

Nottingham University – GOAB BioEngineers

University of Portsmouth – Wireless Wild

University of Sheffield – C2V (Cycle2Vehicles)

University of York – Lighthouse

This next stage of the competition kicks off with a Coaching Day for finalists, hosted at the Royal Academy of Engineering on 24 September 2021. 

At this event, five Sainsbury Management Fellows, all business leaders who benefitted from an MBA scholarship from Engineers in Business Fellowship, will take two teams of finalists under their wings and coach them so they can give their very best pitch performance at the Awards Presentation in October.

The finalists will receive red carpet treatment as they are photographed along with their mentors and display the persuasive pitch posters that helped to get them into the final. They will also give interviews about their competition experience, the inspiration behind their innovation and their ambition for developing their business idea.

Introducing the Sainsbury Management Fellows Mentors 

David Falzani MBE, President of Engineers in Business Fellowship, CEO at Polaris Associates and Professor at Nottingham University. David works with CEOs and senior executives, offering incisive strategic perspective and analysis, linking activity to drivers of success, revealing buyer decision making processes.

SMF Henning von Spreckelsen, Investor and Director of multiple companies including the award-winning Plastecowood which recycles plastic that would otherwise go to landfills or incineration into plastic lumber called Smartawood.

SMF John Collins, Associate, Steer. John specialises in leading strategy and commercial advisory projects for Steer’s UK Advisory Division in London. He also leads projects in overseas markets. He is the Honorary Secretary for a multi-million educational trust and recently started teaching a module in project management at Imperial College.

SMF George Fowkes, Director, BasePower Ltd, George is a business development leader. He designs, develops and rollouts business opportunities in the UK, Europe and Asia.

SMF William Burton, Founder at Executive Support. William is an entrepreneurial CEO specialising in turnarounds, buy-outs and complex situations, especially in travel & transport and business services. William is also the Founder and CEO of an exciting online travel company, Awesome Experiences. 

The Awards Presentation will be hosted on 22 October 2021, when you can see the teams present their innovations. We will soon publish the link to sign up to watch the live online show.

If you have any questions, please contact us: eibcompetition@eibc.org.uk