KU’s bright entrepreneurs beat seven universities and won the majority of prizes at the Bright Idea Awards.
Kaia Tufteland
Kingston University won 19 out of 21 prizes at the Bright Idea Awards for young entrepreneurs, beating seven other London universities.
The 32 students from various courses at Kingston did not expect such a surprising result when they received their awards at the University of Westminster which was the competition’s venue.
“Spring ball towards something bigger”
Dwain Reid, entrepreneurship project officer at Kingston and part of the award’s organisation team, said: “It’s an excellent initiative. I think any competition that encourages students for their ideas is usually a spring ball towards something bigger,” Mr Reid said.
He explained that the Bright Idea Awards has run for nine years and they team gets about 200 entries which all go through a judgement process of two rounds. After that, the winners are awarded at the final ceremony.
Turning ideas into projects
The competition is part of KU’s entrepreneurship support service and the idea of the BIA is to encourage students to turn their ideas into projects, give feedback and offer help develop those ideas further.
Entries can range from written proposals, to prototypes or even an idea to improve an existing product.
Daniel Tucker, a second-year student of the postgraduate diploma in management studies, won £1,000 for his idea of a personnel location system. It would not only provide real time locations but also statistical information of front line troops or commanders on the ground.
“I was very impressed with the competition. There is a large pool of prize money and this allows the organisers to award many winners, meaning more people benefit from the opportunities to get feedback on their ideas and money to hopefully get them moving,” Mr Tucker said.
On the market
Anderson Garland, who graduated from Kingston in 2010, worked together with second-year student Sadia Ahmed who also won £1,000. They created a portable folding bike designed for the 21st century.
Mr Garland said: “This bike has two functions and what I really dream for is that it works as a bike and that the fold is not a secondary consideration but is a less important factor.”
So far, he and Ahmed have produced three prototypes of their folding bike. With the prize money they will finance the next prototype so that they can hopefully finalise it and put it on the market.