Engineers in Business Champion of Champions Competition Open for Entries!

From this month, engineering students and graduates who won an Engineers in Business (EIB) innovation cash prize or participated in their universities’ business ideas competitions in the last twelve months can enter the EIB Champion of Champions Competition 2022.  This is a national competition that awards engineering students and recent graduates with cash prizes and business mentoring to help them develop their business concepts further – many of these concepts become real businesses.

Students who participate in the EIB Champion of Champions Competition have the chance of winning a share of £10,000, mentorship from  Sainsbury Management Fellows who are business leaders working in blue chip corporations or running entrepreneurial businesses. In addition, the competition prize sponsors, Purple CV, provide winners with a tailored CV package and Cambridge University Press provides winners with the thought-provoking book Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Eligible students and graduates can enter the competition between now and 5 September 2022 – each competitor must supply a short video, promotional poster and a Business Model Canvass explaining their innovation.   The judges (SMF business leaders) will select the 10 most outstanding business ideas to go forward to a live Awards Presentation in London in October 2022.   Full details on how to enter are on the Engineers in Business website.

Competition Background
Engineers in Business Fellowship (EIBF) runs the Champion of Champions Competition, the culmination of each year’s work with enterprise educators at universities throughout the UK.  Each year EIBF provides prize funds to universities that use their annual fund of £3,000 each to bolster their enterprise and entrepreneurship courses and modules and encourage increasing numbers of engineers of all disciplines to participate in their business ideas competitions.

In 2021, despite COVID restrictions, participation in the universities’ business innovation competitions was still high with nearly 148,000 students receiving EIBF messages and over 4,000 students participating in competitions; 3,014 of whom were students studying engineering, computer science and biomedicine.

Since the Engineers in Business (EIB) prize fund was launched with generous funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the number of participating universities has risen from four to 36 and EIBF has awarded £200,000 to UK universities and has the capacity to support even more universities.

Why Target Engineers for the Prize Fund?
Engineering skills are greatly augmented by business education. For this reason, EIBF encourages engineering undergraduates and graduates to participate in university enterprise competitions through the prize fund. This helps to increase the level of participation, enabling engineering students and graduates to gain more commercial education and to develop business ideas that solve problems in society.

To see the inspiring ideas developed by engineering students who have won Engineers in Business prizes, visit the 2021 and 2022 prize winners’ pages on our website.

Applying for a Prize Fund
If your university runs a business innovation competition that includes engineering students and recent graduates as participants, you may apply for an annual £3,000 prize fund. Download the application form here and contact us if you have any questions or need assistance.