Entrepreneurship – 2024

Entrepreneurship first place: Light

Light is an AI-based web platform using machine learning to match PhD students with potential supervisors. The team developed their solution to address the long and inefficient search process for a PHD supervisor, due to a lack of a centralised platform, making it difficult for PhD students to locate a relevant supervisor.

The platform would analyse students’ academic CVs and preferences to provide a curated list of potential supervisors, addressing the inefficient and lengthy search process. It would also give students detailed insights on the mentorship styles and student satisfaction ratings of their prospective supervisors before any formal commitment.

Students:

• Aarya Banthia – Mechanical Engineering
• Naveesha Karunanayaka – Molecular Bioengineering
• Arianna Mortini – Advanced Chemical Engineering with Biotechnology
• Reem Al-sayed – Advanced Chemical Engineering with Process Systems Engineering

Prize awarded: £500

Entrepreneurship second place: WorkWeek

WorkWeek would be the first AI based scheduling app which monitors the productivity and behavioural patterns of students, such as attention span, break frequency, time of day preferences and so on to create a tailored schedule to maximise their time efficiency. The proposed idea was developed to address the struggle that students face with optimising their schedules to efficiency, and difficulty adapting to last minute changes. The app would synchronise with pre-existing schedules such as a university timetable for ease of use and compatibility, and allow students to quickly input changes which would automatically modify their schedule.

Students:

• Jake Meechanyakul – Advanced Chemical Engineering
• Naman Shah – Mechanical Engineering
• Robith Hadhromi – Advanced Chemical Engineering with Process Systems Engineering
• Roberto La Corte – Mechanical Engineering

Prize awarded: £300

Entrepreneurship third place: MealMade

MealMade was developed to reduce food waste and provide a healthy and affordable alternative to convenient fast-food options for students. The proposed app would allow students to order meals from other students who love cooking and want to earn some extra income by selling surplus food portions. The platform would enable students to place orders for their favourite dishes, track their orders in real-time and receive notifications upon delivery. For home cooks, the app would provide a platform to effortlessly list their surplus food portions or create custom dishes based on student orders.

Students:

• Amrutha Sreekumar – Advanced Chemical Engineering with Process Systems Engineering
• Victor Dehon – Advanced Chemical Engineering with Process Systems Engineering
• Ernest Ng – Mechanical Engineering
• Manon Doublet – Biomedical Engineering with a Year in Industry

Prize awarded: £200

Entrepreneurship online first place: Upskill

UpSkill VR is a low-cost business idea that aims to utilise VR headsets in prisons, allowing prisoners to take company accredited courses in various industries such as retail, hospitality and manual labour. This would enable them to gain certificates, develop both hard and soft skills and constantly develop based on real-time feedback in the virtual environment. The proposed idea would allow companies to see learning progressions and statistics across required skills once the person has left prison, or the person could use their certificate and stats to apply elsewhere as the course acts as industry wide proof of upskilling. The idea was developed in response to high unemployment rates for former prisoners.

Students:

• Aymen Jaber – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• James Ormsby – Materials with Management
• Sharma Shravan – Mechanical Engineering
• Areeb Ahmed – Mechanical Engineering
• Hasnat Chowdhury – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• Raaed Ali – Materials with Management

Prize awarded: £1,000

Entrepreneurship online second place: Unicycle

UniCycle is a proposed app that would provide a convenient and trustworthy platform for university students to buy and sell second-hand products instead of disposing reusable items. The app aims to address the issue of students producing reusable waste during their time of studies (for example, disposed items when leaving student accommodation) by extending the lifecycle of products. Through UniCycle, students would be able to earn money from unused possessions and buyers can get quality items at a lower price.

Students could also meet on campus, encouraging sustainable trading and reducing their carbon footprint. The proposed app would also track and display the estimated reduction in carbon footprint after each transaction to further raise awareness for climate action.

Students:

• John Chan – Mechanical Engineering
• Iris Li – Mechanical Engineering
• Siqin Xu – Mechanical Engineering
• Haoyu Zhou – Mechanical Engineering
• Jiahua Zhao – Mechanical Engineering

Prize awarded: £500

Entrepreneurship online third place: EcoSocket

EcoSocket is a smart plug socket that aims to help homeowners remotely control appliances and reduce energy usage at home. The proposed business idea aims to address the added expenses to bills due to the wasted energy from the sockets due to standby or forgetting to turn off appliances. EcoSocket would tap into the demand for smart home technologies by offering an affordable, sleek product, controlled via an app, and integrated with a wider smart home. As well as home-owners, the proposed product would also be targeted towards renters (unable to make permanent changes, businesses (large offices) and property developers.

Students:

• Ayman Osman – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• Felipe Mendes – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• Findlay Laffey – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• Irene Meletopoulou – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• Krishaan Surendran – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• Nithi Sendhil – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management
• Rory Holm – Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Management

Prize awarded: £500