University bootcamp awards £22,000 funding to help entrepreneurs launch business ideas

Emerging entrepreneurs in Suffolk have been celebrated at the University of Suffolk’s Summer Start-Up Bootcamp, with £22,000 start-up funding split between three winners in a Dragon’s Den style finale.

The six-week programme run by the university’s Careers, Enterprise and Employability team is designed to support students and graduates from a wealth of diverse backgrounds to develop and pitch their business ideas to be in with a chance of winning some seed funding to help them launch or develop their business.

Over the course of the programme, the entrepreneurs were supported by experts from both within the university and external guests to equip the entrepreneurs with the skills and confidence needed to turn their unique ideas into viable businesses.
The workshops developed skills across a host of key areas such as the fundamentals of business planning, marketing, branding, digital strategies, utilising artificial intelligence, financing, leadership and intellectual property.

This year’s summer bootcamp featured 16 student and graduate entrepreneurs, with 11 progressing to the finale event on Tuesday 7 July, where they pitched their ideas to a Dragon’s Den style panel, held in front of an audience of university representatives, business leaders and entrepreneurs.

Pitched businesses spanned a range of sectors, including health and wellbeing, cyber security, the care sector, sustainability, home buyer compliance and emerging technologies.

Three outstanding ventures secured a share of the £22,000 prize fund, made possible by £21,000 from the Higher Education Innovation Fund and £1,000 from Connected Innovation.

£12,000 was awarded to Data Science and Artificial Intelligence alumnus Darlington Nwosu to accelerate the growth of Ceres-Carbon Reports. The funding will enable the business to put its carbon reporting platform into production, as well as strengthen cyber security and convert the pilot projects into paying customers among other endeavours.

Hephzibah Gad (ZG), who has just completed her first year on the Business Management course, was awarded £8,000 to expand Unity Eats, an African fusion pop-up eatery celebrating authentic African flavours while bringing together communities through food.

A final £2,000 was handed to Sports Performance Analysis student Alex Le Ray to attend the Bremen Space Conference, where Alex will be able to present the Fusion Propulsion business concept to an international audience in the space sector.

The judging panel comprised Sarah Harris and Professor Marek Hornak, both from the University of Suffolk, Alex Till from MENTA, Ashley Shorley-Mills from Suffolk Chamber of Commerce and Mike Williams from Hethal Innovation.

The panel praised the exceptionally high standard of ideas pitched in this year’s bootcamp, which they said reflected the breadth of entrepreneurial talent across the university.

Darlington Nwosu said: “It feels great, it validates our idea and gives me great confidence to move forward and launch properly. Learning about marketing and branding was really insightful.”

Hephzibah Gad added: “It feels incredible and very humbling. Winning this funding is a great vote of confidence in the vision behind Unity Eats. It motivates me even more to build a business that celebrates culture, brings communities together through food and creates meaningful opportunities for others.”

Alex Le Ray said: “I’ve gone from being a person with an idea to a person with funding and a route to development and production. The best part of the bootcamp for me was definitely the networking.”

Hannah Page, Business Engagement Consultant and project lead for the bootcamp at the University of Suffolk, said: “Every year we are inspired by the ambition, creativity and resilience by our students and graduates who take part in the bootcamps, and it was fantastic to see participants from such a wide range of courses applying entrepreneurial thinking to real-world challenges and bring their business ideas to life.

“We work hard with local business experts and industry partners to ensure the bootcamp sessions deliver real insight and knowledge for our entrepreneurs, and is just one of the many ways we seek to support our students and graduates beyond their studies.”

Work is already underway on organising next summer’s bootcamp, and organisers welcome conversations with organisations which may be able to help support entrepreneurs at the bootcamps. Support could include mentoring opportunities, joining the judging panel, sponsoring the events or running one of the workshops.

Any businesses interested in getting involved can contact Hannah Page at h.page3@uos.ac.uk.

To find out more about the bootcamps, visit the webpage here.