Engineering YES, a national business plan training competition for would-be entrepreneurs undertaking research in British universities, held its seventh national final at Faraday Wharf on the Innovation Birmingham Campus.
Each workshop heat involved three-and-a-half days of intense activity, including presentations and mentoring covering all the core business skills. Then each team had to prepare a business plan for a fictitious but realistic opportunity for a panel of expert judges, including venture capitalists and senior managers from the engineering sector.
The top six teams from the workshop heats presented their business plans to a panel of judges that included senior industry executives (John Edwards CBE, Matt Price from Rolls-Royce, Caroline Marshall from Potter Clarkson Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys, and Paul Mitchell from RBS) for prizes sponsored by Roll-Royce and Potter Clarkson.
The winners of the £2,000 first prize, from Newcastle, presented plans to reduce NHS costs by generating energy from hospital waste. The runners-up, with a £500 prize, also from Newcastle, had a project for generating biofuel from waste water and carbon dioxide emissions. The Potter Clarkson prize for the best use of intellectual property also went to Newcastle’s first team.
