On 14 June, 13 entrants will be pitching their innovative ideas to a panel of investors. They will be competing for a share of £5,000.
Below we write about the first set of students and their businesses below. Tomorrow we’ll publish the final set! Do come back to read all about their innovative ideas.
We will announce the winners live on Twitter – follow us on @unialliance and join in the conversation at #EnterpriseStars.
University of Brighton
Frugly Juice: Harry Kimberley-Bowen
Harry Kimberley-Bowen’s investment idea aims to tackle the current and massive issue of food waste by creating healthy, nutritious and affordable juices from fruit considered ‘ugly’.
Frugly juice aims to rescue fruit from the rubbish. In the UK alone, seven million tonnes of food is thrown away each year with up to 40% of fruit and veg not even making it from farms to supermarket shelves due to its ‘ugly’ appearance. Despite, as Harry explains, still being beautiful on the inside.
Frugly aims to intercept wasted produce, like the 1.4 million binned bruised bananas every single day and turn this rescued fruit and veg into wonderful fruit juice.
University of Central Lancashire
Extendable baby clothes: Rukhsana Razaq
We are all astonished and delighted by how quickly babies change. But it does mean parents need to stock up when their baby outgrows their current (and often quite new) clothes. Rukshana’s business idea is to create extendable baby clothes to meet the needs of customers who want clothes to have a longer life. As well as the potential financial savings, her product will have a positive impact on the environment because they will be more eco-friendly and result in less waste by consumers.
Rukhsana believes her idea is innovative because there is currently no outlet that produces specifically for this market and that this could be an attractive product for large families. “I would be revolutionizing the way people shop for their children with a ‘cost saving’ concept in mind,” she says.
Rukhsana’s long-term goal is to add extendable baby shoes to her range. She also plans to purchase raw materials within the UK to support UK manufacturers.
Coventry University
IUDRO: Alejandro Perez-Llabata and Natasha Mehra
Alejandro and Natasha have set up the International Drone Racing Organisation (IUDRO), the world’s first organisational body that regulates inter-university drone racing events. They are helping to propel sustainable adoption of drone technology and inspire the next generation of participants to aim higher.
Students can become members of the organisation and universities host sanctioned drone racing events. IUDRO uses the innovative nature of drone technology to raise awareness and understanding of how drones are use and their future potential. Find out more at www.iudro.com
University of Greenwich
CNPPS: Kamal Farid
Kamal has come up with an idea that has the potential to turn the UK’s pavement sector into a carbon-negative industry. He has launched CNPPS, a completely new technology for paving hard surfaces through the use of secondary used aggregates. The manufacturing technology coverts secondary used and waste produced into the necessary quality required for roads or pavements.
Countless miles are paved every day in the UK, from new urban developments to highways, and a greener alternative could address the issue of rising carbon dioxide. CNPPS is also 8% less expensive than current traditional products and processes.
The technology also uses a Sustainable Draining System (SuDS) technique which replicates the normal draining system and excludes all the pollutants from the run-off water to prevent blockage. The CNPPS drainage system is installed to collect all the rainwater instantly with the ability of either storing it in the ground for later use or collecting and discharging it via pipes at low levels in the ground. This significantly facilitates the control of storm water runoff, reducing the risk of flooding, as well as improving road safety by minimising surface water. Find out more here www.cnpps.co.uk
“According to the £147 billion infrastructure budget announced by the Government for the transport sector, CNPPS can save more than two billion pounds, even if it is only used in 25% of the projects,” he says.
University of Hertfordshire
Aerial Icon: Ekene Ukemenam
Ekene wants to harness the potential of drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras to carry out surveys on land and building structures out of reach of traditional ground-based cameras. This would enable heat audits to be carried out faster, more cheaply and protect workers from dangerous work environments such as the top of buildings or elevated structures.
Such surveys allow home and property owners to see where they need to put cladding and insulation to save money on heating bills. They can also be used to inspect power lines and solar panels to identify hotspots which indicate a potential fault in the equipment and to conduct inspections to pinpoint structural weaknesses and damages. Find out more here www.aerialiconproductions.com
Kingston University
Ayswap: Janja Popovic
Five thousand (non-recyclable) coffee cups are binned every minute in the UK alone. The pressing problem of dealing with plastic waste has caught everyone’s attention in recent years. Janja’s idea, Ayswap, reduce the use of ‘traditional’ disposable coffee cups by offering consumers a reusable eco-friendly cup alongside a subscription at their favourite coffee shops.
Ayswap not only provides a solution to the environmental issue of eliminating plastic waste but also allows coffee drinkers to save money and pay for their everyday coffee in a more convenient way. Coffee shops benefit from regular customers and payment in advance.
“If one person in London uses a reusable coffee cup every day, in five years this would mean that we would reduce 1,825 coffee cups of unnecessary plastic waste,” she says. Visit https://ayswap.com/
Liverpool John Moores University
Coachoom: Matthew Domville
LJMU PhD student Matthew‘s business idea supports children to become their best selves – to develop into fitter, healthier and happier individuals. Throughout his research, Matthew has worked alongside school educators and pupils to uncover new ways to increase children’s activity levels and reduce sedentary behaviours.
Coachoom is an online school-based health and wellbeing resource which help teachers with their classroom management strategies, providing a holistic approach to child development, focusing on the physical, mental and social development.
It offers short videos centred on fundamental movement skills inspired by yoga, pilates, tai chi and martial arts, so teachers can incorporate health and well-being activities into school quickly and effectively.
Coachoom also provides physical products and fund activity resources for children to use in the playground and at home. Finally, it connects with local clubs, gyms and studios to offer families and children discounted opportunities to be active outside of school.
