Posted Tuesday 23 February 2021
Bright Ideas, Kingston University's annual enterprise competition, saw almost 700 entrepreneurial students pitch their innovative ideas at the first ever virtual Grand Final. Many students harnessed inspiration from the global pandemic as they came up with solutions to help those whose lives have been affected by the virus.
Each year, students aim to win up to £1,000 by pitching ideas that solve real-life issues to a judging panel of renowned l entrepreneurs and notable University alumni. This year the University invited back some of its most successful business alumni in judging the competition. They included Marit Mohn, Chair of The Mohn Westlake Foundation, Albert Roberson, Equal Opportunity & Diversity Officer at Chapman University, and Paule Carine Dao, Digital Project Manager, Bright/Shift and Founder, Daolondon, who was also one of the winners in the competition last year.
This year, the University has partnered with a number of organisations to grow the competition and inspire a whole new wave of entrepreneurial minds. These include Stefano Ciampolini, Founder & Managing Partner, Healthcare Capital Partners Ltd and MedScience Ventures LLC and Sainsbury Management Fellows 'Engineers in Business' - which sponsored categories and prizes aligned with their sectors.
Traditionally, Bright Ideas is split into eight categories with each one crowning a winner. This year the competition shifted its focus from specific topics and instead invited faculties and departments to take part. Dr Martha Mador, Head of Enterprise Education was delighted to see more students come forward this year from different courses and was impressed with the themes their ideas were based around.
"Key themes throughout the competition focused again on sustainability as well some interesting ideas to do with isolation and helping people during the global pandemic which is a really valuable and important theme our students are interested in," said Martha.
The Engineering 2 category winner AirTrainer-66 is an offline, on-the-go revision app that helps turn aircraft mechanics into aircraft engineers. Team member George Folland stressed how the global pandemic offered new avenues to explore.
"The pandemic helped give food for thought as to what style of innovation we should pursue. Working from home definitely helped inspire the 'on-the-go revision' idea for AirTrainer-66." said George.
AirTrainer-66 was a response to some of the frustrations his peers had experienced during their training to become aircraft maintenance engineers. "Our idea aimed to answer these frustrations by providing a theoretical solution that would enable offline revision and aid with the most difficult module of study. This would hopefully help trainee aircraft engineers on their career journey," explains George.
Final year Graphic Design student Lydia Millar claimed both the Kingston School of Art award and the People's Choice Award by creating a speech therapy app for aphasia, which incorporates Music Intonation Therapy techniques with personalised music-based exercises.?
"At the beginning of my second year, my uncle Keith suffered a big stroke which affected his ability to formulate sentences. After visiting him a couple of times, his condition really stuck with me; I felt I wanted to use my design skills to help him. Voice emerged from co-designing with him, integrating his needs and preferences into a personalised app, so that he could enjoy his music in a way that could help his aphasia," said Lydia.
Being part of Bright Ideas has been extremely uplifting for Lydia and has given her the confidence she needs to pursue her endeavour. "It felt very surreal winning the KSA category with this idea. It was such an honour to hear such enthusiasm from the panel of judges, allowing me to begin to see this concept as a viable pathway for future investigation. It's given me a needed boost coming up to the end of my degree," explains Lydia.
One of the highlights for students was a talk from keynote speaker Shed Simove, also known as the 'Ideas Man', who is a renowned performer, author, entrepreneur and motivational speaker on creativity and innovation. He spoke openly about his experiences in business and expressed a refreshing perspective of what it means to be successful.
"We are trained to think success is binary, that you either get success, or you don't, but actually success is very much more a 'normal distribution'. You can have bits of success and bits of failures. It's never a black and white situation," said Mr Simove.
Referring to the pandemic's detrimental effect on the job market, Simove offered his wisdom on how students can stand out from the crowd. "You need to look at what everyone else is doing in any market to differentiate yourself. You need two things, firstly a stunt to get noticed - do something different to what everyone else is doing, and secondly, proof that you are going to deliver actual value," explains Shed.
"This tough time is going to force you to be entrepreneurial. If you're applying for a job, then maybe it means that the jobs available are more competitive and therefore it's even more of an onus on you to differentiate yourself and prove yourself. Don't just send in a CV, you have to go the extra mile, get attention and then prove how you would be great for the role."
Winners of Bright Ideas 2021
Category |
Winner |
Runner-up |
Biology & Life sciences
|
A K E S I S |
Magnatic Baby's Hearing AIDs |
Business UG
|
Zenith |
Be More 4 You |
Business PG
|
Themis |
Metrocart |
Engineering 1
|
Safety on Site |
Movi-Post |
Engineering 2
|
AirTrainer-66 |
Big-11 |
Kingston School of Art
|
Voice |
Sow |
Technology and People
|
Playce |
Heritage 2 Health |
20 December 2024
19 December 2024
18 December 2024