Starting A Business

The Starting a Business event was the culmination of nine weeks of learning through lectures and practical workshop sessions, offered to University of Warwick engineering students. The final business ideas presented were from a diverse group of engineering students from myriad engineering disciplines, with each group consisting of six or seven members. A diversity of ideas were presented ranging from fitness solutions to addressing the unsustainable use of RFID tags . Two groups were picked up from amongst 16 groups for a prize of £ 1,500 per group.

Joint First Place: FitBox

Project:

FitBox is a multipurpose box, containing gym equipment inside, including free weights and resistance bands, whilst also having the unique ability to be used for box jumps. The detachable lid also operates as a bench and when the box is dismantled fully it acts as an exercise mat. This provides customers with a convenient way to exercise at home, with this singular purchase containing the fundamentals required for both beginners and gym regulars to workout. There is also form tracking technology included in the box, giving the customer the ability to check they are correctly lifting the weights. There is an app accompanying this, containing exercise videos, healthy meal suggestions and a friend’s system, allowing the customers to compete and be motivated by their peers.

Students:

Asha Kateli – Mechanical Engineering
Reshmi Perayeravar – Systems Engineering
Miles Ratcliffe – Engineering Business Management
Harry Williams – Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Ish Chhabra – Mechanical Engineering
Vicky Lam – Computer System Engineering

Awarded: £1,500

Joint First Place: GraphTag

Project:

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology uses radio waves to passively identify a tagged objects. With RFIDs being used in every business sector, from scanning clothing prices to authenticating keycards in offices, more than 18 billion of these devices are circulated annually, and this number is on the rise each year. A large carbon footprint, single-use discarding, resource endangerment and plastic pollution are some of the many concerns associated with the design of current RFIDs. GraphTag is a metalless, paper-based RFID tag, helping to reduce the environmental footprint of the technology.

Students:

Chirag Prakash – Computer Systems Engineering
Edoardo Rusconi – Mechanical Engineering
Lara Safak – Engineering Business Management
Sal Bari – Systems Engineering
Wonhyeong Cho – Mechanical Engineering
Hao Zheng – Engineering Business Management

Awarded: £1,500

Positive feedback

While EIBC prize money is a welcome and encouraging financial incentive, the value of the competition is much more in terms of an opportunity for our students to learn how to pitch to a panel of seasoned potential investors (including Sainsbury Management Fellows) and at the same time get detailed feedback on the potential of their business ideas. This mentoring is much more valuable than the actual prize money. Many thanks to Engineers in Business Fellowship for its continued focus on encouraging entrepreneurship amongst engineers.

Ketan Goswami
Assistant Professor
Warwick Business School