Luke Hosking wins Business Ideas Challenge 2009

On Monday evening, competition sponsors, partners, finalists and their guests gathered together at the Tamar Science Park to find out who had won this year’s Business Ideas Challenge competition. As well as the excitement of the awards, everyone was treated to an entertaining and most inspiring talk by Oliver Blackwell, a Plymouth graduate and serial inventor/designer. Also present were Deputy Vice Chancellor, Mary Watkins who presented the awards and the university’s successful FLUX team.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in the competition, the finalists, the organisers, guests, sponsors for making the evening so enjoyable and successful. Throughout the evening there was a buzz and a really friendly atmosphere. The weather also favoured us allowing the photographs of the winners to be taken outside in the gardens.

Unfortunately there were some of you who were unable to make it for the awards, so the following is a summary of the results with details of the winning entries.

This year, the judges selected five ideas to receive awards. There were four runner-up awards. Each runner-up received £1000 in cash to develop their idea plus professional and service support packages worth up to £2000. The overall winner received £2000 in cash plus an enhanced support package.

Runners-up

Paul Sutton (UoP staff): T-SEP

“Thermal Separation (T-SEP) is a re-usable retro-fit device that interfaces with industry standard equipment used to separate compounds of interest from mixtures and allows the thermal control of the separation process. Exacting temperature control (±0.1˚C) of this process will provide scientists with an extra degree of separation to those traditionally considered e.g. sorbent selection and solvent composition. In addition, we have used the device to develop a proprietary technique to enhance our consultancy service to the petroleum industry.”

This award was sponsored by: 

Pam Nelmes (UoP Staff): Cleanies

 “Cleanies’ is a business idea that aims to promote hand hygiene in young children. Hand hygiene is widely acknowledged as vital to control infection however it can be difficult to encourage compliance.  This business will develop a range of products that are character-based and created to appeal specifically to children. The product range will evolve with a strong brand and unique selling points to influence perception of customers and enable products to stand-out from competitors. ‘Cleanies’ will put the fun back into hand hygiene.”

This award was sponsored by: Bio Vault

Lisa Fuller (Falmouth College student): Fuller Design Consultants

“A new sustainable design consultancy will be launching on 1st June 2009, specialising in product design for small and medium sized manufacturing companies.  A trialled and tested co-design process tailored to meet each client’s needs.  Our innovative design solutions will positively benefit your business and make its products future proof, able to assist companies wishing to gain ISO 14002 accreditation, helping you to meet legislation such as packaging regulations.  Researching and developing new products from waste; that reduces costs and increases profits, making materials, products and packaging more sustainable, enhancing your product range and giving your company a competitive advantage.”

This award was sponsored by:  Combines Universities, Cornwall

Marc Lintern (UoP staff  member): Digger Books

“The idea behind Digger Books is to use the process of publishing a children's book as an experiential learning project for students. Book projects will involve not only university students but school and college pupils, working also with community groups and other organisations. I am currently piloting a first book with Groundwork Devon and Cornwall, working with university publishing students from Looe Secondary School, supported by a freelance author. The intention is to use this pilot to stimulate demand and produce a working model for further books and to attract funding to support these.”

This award was sponsored by:  N J Akers & Co

Overall Winner

Luke Hosking (Alumni): Waste Warmth Ltd

“Last year a staggering 434 million tonnes of waste was sent to landfill (BBC Coventry: 2009). Waste Warmth Ltd is a new and innovative company which could convert a large proportion of this waste into biomass. The biomass is classed as a carbon neutral fuel and could be used to heat buildings, domestic and commercial across the United Kingdom. The cheap raw material would help reduce fuel poverty whilst providing an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels.”

This award was sponsored by:  

Judges Comments 

“This year’s winner does have a truly great idea but a good idea can only go so far in the wrong hands. Our winner really impressed the judges with their progress over the course of the competition and their drive and determination to take the idea forward was obvious.

Whilst the first round of the competition was very close, our overall winner today stood out from the rest. They clearly demonstrated that they have the knowledge, tenacity and enthusiasm to succeed but they also showed a willingness to learn. They attended every enterprise workshop, took maximum advantage of the mentoring and advice offered through the competition and have obviously put a lot of work into getting this far with their idea.

The judges are convinced that if anyone will, he will and are delighted to make Luke Hosking this year’s overall winner”

We would all like to congratulate Luke and all the award winners. The quality of their development plans was excellent and deserving of the awards. We wish them all success with their ideas and will be providing them with help and professional support over the coming months.

Oliver Blackwell

The evening’s keynote speaker Oliver Blackwell delivered a truly inspirational talk which he titled ‘Never Ever, Ever Give Up’ and you could understand why. Only the day before he had completed the London Marathon in a very decent time and looked amazingly well on it!

Oliver is a ‘serial designer/inventor’ who from what we understand comes up with new ideas almost every day! He took us through his amusing ‘inventing’ history starting at the age of 8 to the present day! Whilst his early ideas were seldom successful, with time and knowledge things improved and since graduating from Plymouth in 2003 Oliver has established his own successful design business, and over the last four years he has been awarded ‘The Daily Mail Designer of the Year’ and is now a Chartered Industrial Designer.

One of his predominant projects is WashDryIron, the World’s first drumless washing machine, that also irons clothes! This product started life as his final student project and went on to win him The Daily Mail Designer of the Year’ award. Since then he has re-engineered and designed some very successful products on behalf of global companies and currently has products being manufactured in Australasia, China and the UK.

When asked where he wanted to be in 5 years time he said ‘retired and playing sport every day’! He has a plan and we all got the impression that he would achieve it!

For more info on Oliver or to contact him see: www.oliverblackwell.com