SEED Start-Up Funding Competition – 2021
Back to Competitions | At the University of Southampton, the Student Enterprise Team (based in the Careers and Employability Service), Future Worlds (the on-campus start-up accelerator, based within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences) and the University’s Social Impact Lab have come together to offer the SEED Start-Up Funding Competition. The competition is exclusive to University of Southampton students and supports them in the creation and development of early stage businesses or social enterprises through the awarding of funding prizes. Students have to submit business plans and video pitches before being shortlisted to pitch in front of a panel of judges. The Engineers in Business Competition has been integrated into the SEED Fund to engage more engineers and students with engineering-related business ideas to develop their own start-up businesses. Students from specific and relevant engineering modules are also able to apply via their coursework assignments, offering an innovative approach to reaching out to more students with the opportunity. |
First Prize Winner
Tamara Ivancova, MEng Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering – £1,500 Engineers in Business Prize
Tamara’s business, Synergy, creates radio-controlled, hydrofoil boat kits, that are available pre-assembled or for individuals to build themselves.
Second Prize Winner
Alfie Vauvelle, MSc Maritime Engineering – £1,000 Engineers in Business Prize
Alfie’s business, Mouthkit, is looking at ways to improve intra-oral photography to aid tele-dentistry.
Third Prize Winner
Janushan Shanmugavadivel, PhD in Computer Science – £500 Engineers in Business Prize
Janushan’s business, CareIQ aims to increase QOF (quality and outcomes framework) performance by minimising the administration work required by GPs, enabling patients to be monitored remotely.
Positive feedback
The Engineers in Business Competition Prize is an incredible opportunity for our University of Southampton students. While the Engineers in Business Fund is open to all engineering students at the University of Southampton, through our SEED Fund Competition, an additional application route has been made available to engineering students from a specific module, which has encouraged a much greater diversity in applications and has raised greater awareness of the opportunity. In 2020 our winning student from our University of Southampton Engineers in Business Competition went on to be a winner of the national competition, which is an incredible achievement.
Sarah Rogers, Student Enterprise and Opportunities Manager, University of Southampton