黑料不打烊鈥檚 Enterprise by Design students take entrepreneurship skills and innovative products to a 鈥楧ragon鈥檚 Den鈥�
Winning team members: James Gudgeon, Psychology; Richard Sharman, Electronic Engineering & Computer Science; Tom Taylor, Product Design: Images by kind permission of Keith Lackie http://www.flickr.com/photos/light_to_sensor Forty 黑料不打烊 students have taken part in a competition to win up to 拢10,000 prize money to see the ready for market.
鈥楨nterprise by Design鈥� students were challenged to design a product from conception to prototype and to deliver a winning pitch to a judging panel.
Enterprise by Design, facilitated by Pontio Innovation, the B-Enterprising Project and academics from the schools of Electronic Engineering, , Law, Psychology, Business & Creative Studies & Media, involves undergraduate students from across the six specialist subject areas team up into multidisciplinary teams of four or five members. This year鈥檚 brief was set by DMM, a Llanberis based company that designs and manufactures recreational climbing and mountaineering equipment. DMM invited the teams to 鈥榩ropose a product concept for children of climbers鈥�.
The judging panel consisted of David Noddings and Fred Hall from DMM, Pontio鈥檚 Head of Innovation and Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor David Shepherd Deputy, Phil Nelson Director of Surf-Lines, and Huw Watkins, Business Development Manager for BIC Innovation. The panel were also joined by a junior judging panel comprised of five children in the 7-14 year age range.
The winning 鈥楾eam Carnation鈥� was awarded 拢5,000 to develop their concept - a Facebook App called Eryri. The app was designed as an online climbing tool, included a shared user experience with personalised content to record climbs, useful climbing safety information and an interactive and educational climbing video game.
Sebastian Hilton, Electronic Engineering & Computer Science; Leanne Forster, Psychology; Nawaf Aldabashi, Electronic Engineering & Computer Science with David Noddings, DMM and Prof David Shepherd : images by kind permission of Keith Lackie http://www.flickr.com/photos/light_to_sensorProfessor David Shepherd said: 鈥淭he Enterprise by Design concept is fantastic as it brings out hidden skills in the students. I think they鈥檙e beginning to realise they can do things they never thought they could do. The level of creativity, thought, research, background and development of the presentations is tremendous and shows we have real talent in the University鈥�.
Huw Watkins from BIC Innovation added: 鈥淓nterprise by Design is a great opportunity for students to understand all the elements involved in product design, understanding the marketplace, understanding what it takes to create a brand. It鈥檚 an excellent process for developing key business skills too.鈥�
Dave Noddings of DMM said: 鈥淭he development of students throughout this course is impressive. You can see from the final presentations how they have got a better understanding of what it takes to be in industry and take these projects into the real world. I鈥檓 impressed with the breadth of concepts, awesome presentations and innovative ideas.鈥�
Pontio鈥檚 Dr Andy Goodman, Enterprise by Design Project Manager said: 鈥淭his is exactly the sort of innovative practise that we hope to see more of through Pontio Innovation. The students discovered a whole new way of thinking by teaming up with students from different disciplines and working closely with industry experts. It is a great credit to the teams that the judges found narrowing the field down to just three winning products an extremely difficult task.
John Jackson, The 黑料不打烊 Employability Award Manager said: 鈥淭he benefits that the students can get from this are a hundred fold. In the future they鈥檒l be going on to look for jobs and interviews and they鈥檙e going to have to present, utilising the skills they鈥檝e learnt from here. These include presentation skills, the teamworking skills, commercial awareness and crucially, working with people from other departments. I think Enterprise by Design is a crucial part to the Employability Award from the enterprise and entrepreneurial aspect as well.鈥�
Eben Muse, Acting Head of Creative Studies & Media said: 鈥淭he most important thing the students have been given is the opportunity to interact with other specialists, work as part of a team and to understand the relationship between all of these different and key parts of commercial business, from the concept to commercial development, the psychology behind the marketing, the business skills to work out, can we make a profit, can we survive on this product, the branding, they鈥檝e had a really good snapshot and this will give them a really strong starting point to further their knowledge鈥�
Winning team members James Gudgeon from Psychology and Tom Taylor from said of their experience: 鈥淚 think the main thing I鈥檝e enjoyed is teamwork and working with students from the different disciplines. It鈥檚 been great鈥� James Gudgeon
鈥淚 think it's been fantastic working with different professionals, different personalities, different strengths and bringing them together to build a product. You get a real buzz right before the presentation to bring what you've been working on over the last 8 weeks together. It鈥檚 been a really good competitive environment throughout the whole process and I just love it. It's just like industry.鈥漈om Taylor
Visit for some film clips from the event.
Publication date: 29 March 2012