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Department of Engineering |
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| University of Cambridge > Engineering Department > News & Features |
8 June 2005
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On Friday 13th May, Cambridge University Entrepreneurs held their annual prize giving for the three business plan competitions. This year, Cambridge University Entrepreneurs has been headed by a Department of Engineering, Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) research student Stewart McTavish, and Department students made a very strong showing in all of the competitions. |
 Department success at business plan competition |
For the '£50k' competition (the mainstream business plan competition), ConnectEase (MET major project from Jude Gomila, Julia Gadsden, Kaoruku Yamazaki and Vincent Simonetti) made it through to the final round.
The '£50k' competition this year was given a new twist: instead of there being a fixed pot of prize money to be awarded, the three top scoring finalists were brought on stage to pitch their idea to a panel of six investors for as much money as they felt they needed. In a nail biting final session one of the three finalists EnvAl (technology for recycling 100% of waste from drinks cartons) managed to raise £150,000 on the night. EnvAl also has a connection to IfM - they have been a recipient of funding through the 'St John's Fund' - a Gatsby-supported programme run jointly by IfM and St John's Innovation Centre.
Cambridge University Entrepreneurs is a student run society whose aim is to support and promote enterprise culture within the University of Cambridge.
More details on the Department of Engineering finalists:
According to the World Tourism Organisation, 698 million people travelled to a foreign country in 2000, spending more than US$478 billion. Yet out of each US$100 spent on vacation tours by a tourist from a developed country, only US$5 actually stays in a developing country destination's economy. Leapfrog Ventures have developed an innovative solution to this problem.
The product, Slide & Swivel™, makes use of a novel concept that enables a child's car seat to slide forward slightly and then rotate towards the car door, allowing face-on loading of the child. This significantly reduces the difficulty in placing and strapping a child into a child car seat. It also aids in the installation of the seat. Slide & Swivel™ is a modular component which has initially been designed for an existing child seat. However, it has the potential to be modified to be incorporated across a range of car seat brands.
Fig Tree has re-evaluated the value of traditional consulting models when applied to understanding markets in some of the poorer regions of the world (bottom of the pyramid). They offer a new approach better suited to help companies meet the needs of this market, through accessing the unique knowledge pool of NGO's and academics.
Reduction in power generation costs will reduce the electricity charge for customers. Two major costs in all power stations are equipment and maintenance costs. Higher efficiencies also cheapen electricity charges and benefit the environment.
Reliability is a very important issue in power stations. Each blackout can cause damage costing billions of pounds. Most blackouts are caused by the failures of turbine generators.
GreenPowerGenerators has developed a novel brushless doubly-fed generator for wind and wave power stations. The novel generator has less manufacturing costs (by down to 10%) and maintenance costs (by down to 60%) and is more efficient (by up to 5%) and more reliable. It operates in a wider range of speeds and introduces higher power quality into the grid (i.e. less harmonic pollution).
The market for this technology is largely composed of power plant suppliers. Electrical motor and generator manufacturers are also the target companies. Since the technology is innovative and critical, there is great market potential.
The idea is to develop the next generation of alcohol-based gel dispensers, primarily for the use of hospitals and other medical institutions.
In recent years, there has been a push by many governing institutions in the developed world towards alcohol-based gels. This is because they are easier to use and more effective at killing germs and bacteria than traditional methods, for example soap, water and a towel.
PureAid have identified many of the issues with current alcohol-based gel dispensers on the market and intend to solve these problems.
Safe boxes, lockers and most security tolls exist to protect our property, our investments and our confidential information from competitors and rivals. TextGuard lower the need for all those measures by securing what is most valued on the most used information containment media - paper. Paper and its contents - the largest source of information leakage in corporate firms - can be secured only to be read by those intended addresses and no others. The product is convenient and simple to use.
To develop a low-cost detachable power unit that will fit 70% of the UK's 400,000 manual wheelchairs. This will offer power, steering and regenerative braking for the wheelchair user or an attendant at a much lower price than a powerchair.
There are 130,000 patients worldwide who undergo peritoneal kidney dialysis using 200 million consumable fluid packs annually. Users under the current system have a 1 in 200 chance of getting a serious infection every year during the connection process. Due to the poor design of current systems, patients experience gatal infections, irritating rashes, general discomfort and difficulty in operating the critical equipment. ConnectEase's technology dramatically reduces the rate of infection and training time required, whilst addressing the issues of patient comfort and ergonomics.
For more information on Cambridge University Entrepreneurs, see www.cue.org.uk
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