Bright Ideas Challenge

Durham University ran its Bright Ideas Challenge for the second year running with the support of an Engineers in Business Prize Fund. The Bright Ideas Challenge is an elevator pitch competition open to the university’s current Engineering, Computer Science or Bioscience students, or multi-disciplinary teams comprising students from these degree categories. Students were inspired to develop innovative solutions for real-world problems and were provided with online support and advice throughout the competition. The students pitched their innovations via two-minute-long videos for the chance to win the Emerald, Ruby or Topaz Engineers in Business prizes.

Emerald Winner: Project Student Housing Team

Project:

The winning team comprises Roshun Karia, Technical Advisor, MEng Electrical Engineering; Vishay Karia, Founder & CEO, MSc Management and Oliver Rust, Accountant, MSc Management (Finance) – £1,500 Engineers in Business Prize.

Project Student Housing aims to bring the student property industry to the 21st century. It looks to increase the standard of student housing nationally, and increase landlords’ return on investment while aiming to reduce rents. It looks to do this through the use of technological advancements and data. The use of a tech platform allows for lower average total costs and a 21st-century solution to a 21st-century problem. CEO Vishay Karia said, “We are looking to put a dent into an industry worth £8bn. We want to kickstart a revolution.”

Awarded: £1,500

Ruby Winner: ChengHao Xiao

Project:

ChengHao Xiao is a  PhD student in Computer Science and he was awarded a £1,000 Engineers in Business Prize.

Commenting on his innovation, ChengHao said, “I have observed the problems the information cocoon of digital media might bring to widen social inequality and have found a unique measurement of “fun” to understand human language on a continuous scale. Using this establishment, a state-of-the-art language model can be trained to provide online users with the freedom to escape to other content that reflects their level and interests instead of being trapped in content that brings anxiety. We aim to build a more equal society with this solution.”

Awarded: £1,000

Topaz Winner: WithMe Team

Project:

The Topaz prize-winning team comprises  Ziqi Pan, PhD in Computer Science; Roshni Vachhani, BSc in Natural Sciences (Mathematics and Computer Science) and Caoxi (Jessie) Zhang, BSc in Computer Science – £500 Engineers in Business Prize

WithMe is a platform designed to share the joy of happiness especially when you are away from home. Exchanges of happiness that come anonymously are just uplifting, with this in mind Cook WithMe, Read WithMe and Live WithMe are three magnificent ways to share your happy moments and receive others.

Using Cook WithMe people share and receive recipes, Read WithMe involves sharing memorable books whilst Live WithMe is about sharing beautiful locations. We believe sharing beautiful memories, especially from home and receiving such exchanges will give everyone a sense of happiness and Joy. So, it’s time to end loneliness and start sharing WithMe!

Awarded: £500

Positive feedback

The Second Engineers in Business Competition prize funding and the backing of the charity helped Durham University’s Enterprise Team raise, not only the profile of the work we do with engineers but furthered our reach to the engineering, Computing and Biosciences students and building on last years’ success, resulting in fantastic applications, from across our population, some of whom had not engaged with enterprise activity previously and, of course, three very worthy winners.

Paul Stafford
PGR Enterprise Manager
Durham University