Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs’ Dragons’ Den is an idea pitching competition based on the hit BBC TV series of the same name. Students will pitch their ideas – for businesses, social enterprises, charities or individual projects – to a panel of ‘Dragons’ which includes:
Jess Ratcliffe, a RHUL student who featured on the real Dragons’ Den
Robin Bennett, author of Start-up Smart, who will be offering attendees the opportunity of up to an additional £5,000 business funding
Rhiannon Horsley from UnLtd, the top UK social enterprise organisation.
The ‘Dragons’ play the role of potential investors in you and your idea. The competition takes place on Thursday 7th October 2010 at 7pm in the Students’ Union.
How do I enter?
The competition is now closed, but you can still attend the event for fun!
What happens next?
All entrants will be given the opportunity to attend a pitching workshop on Wednesday 6th October at 1pm in MX34. At this workshop you will learn how to pitch professionally and be given the opportunity to practise and hone your pitch. The final selection of students who will be put through to face the Dragons will be announced at the end of this workshop and emailed to any students who were unable to attend.
How do I win?
Winning ideas are likely to be those which are innovative, solve a genuine problem or meet a real need, and are likely to be achievable. Although you will not be marked on the quality of your pitch, a good pitch will help you put your idea across.
What is the format of the pitching competition?
You will pitch for just 2 minutes and will have 3 minutes to answer questions.
Who can enter?
Current students at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Got an idea? Join Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs to develop it!
This year we have new ideas, new events and competitions and a whole new range of guest speakers.
Come and find us at Freshers’ Fayre in the Students Union on Thursday and Friday for more information, or say hello if you spot us around campus (look for the white RHE t-shirts)
There are still committee positions available- email president@royalhollowayentrepreneurs.com if you’re interested in becoming part of an award winning society!
Virgin Media Pioneers is a video-blogging community for young entrepreneurs. Check out this latest video – David McQueen speaks to Jamal Edwards, founder of SBTV, one of the UK’s most popular youth media channels. For more interviews like this visit http://www.virginmediapioneers.com. You can also send us your videos to feature on Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs TV!
Be part of an exciting team, learn about taking real technologies and designs to market, strengthen your skills and have some fun!
“Entrepreneurship animates innovation and drives change. Amy Mokady and her iTeams programme are showing how science and engineering will continue to drive us forward.” Doug Richard, School for Startups, Cambridge Angels, Dragon’s Den and many others
“Working on this project has taught me an enormous amount about general business strategy, market analysis, team building, effective communication and presentation. This has been an invaluable experience for me.”
Jing Zhang, Chemistry, i-Teams student.
i-Teams offers a unique opportunity for post-graduate students to build go-to-market strategies for ground-breaking university technologies and inventions.
We bring together leading university researchers with multi-disciplinary teams of the brightest students and experienced business mentors. The teams work together to investigate the commercial prospects of the researcher’s new invention.
Students gain hands-on business skills, while researchers gain first-hand real-world industry feedback.
i-Teams assess the commercial viability of the researcher’s invention, determine future directions, identify product markets, and have some fun too!
No prior experience needed, just enthusiasm and a willingness to try new approaches.
If you are missing Jack Lenox (our founding President) already, then you’ll be pleased to hear that his new project, eNovella, is appearing as part of the SW11 Literary Festival in South London. If you’re nearby, you can pop along and see him at the following events:
• 16th September, 7pm – Bobbie Darbyshire and Nicholas Royle – So you want to be a writer? Making the pages turn – two fiction writers spill the beans on how it’s done. Come and talk to them about writing and pitching your book.
• 19th September, 2pm & 4:30pm – Creative Writing Workshop: Structuring a story for fiction. Alex Wheatle.
• 21st September, 7pm – Isabel Losada – How to get published
All of these events are being held in Waterstones, 70 St John’s Road, Clapham, London SW11 1PT.
To publish your creative writing on a global platform – or read others’ work for free – visit www.enovella.co.uk.
Jessica Ratcliffe, a founding committee member of Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, recently faced tough questioning from angel investors on the hit BBC TV show, Dragons’ Den.
First broadcast on BBC Two on Monday 13th September 2010, Jessica pitched for investment for her game-swapping website, GaBoom.co.uk. A passionate gamer and entrepreneur, Jess has been working tirelessly since January 2010, to develop and launch her dream game-trading platform, GaBoom.co.uk. “We have developed a safe, easy and unique way of trading games online; providing users, not only with our automatic user-matching system but two secure and insured postage options to take the hassle and risk out of trading their games online.” says Jess.
Jess told the Dragons the support she had received at Royal Holloway, one of the UK’s top destinations for student entrepreneurs, had been a critical factor in helping her to build her business. As a committee member of Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, the student enterprise society, she has also inspired other students to follow their dreams.
Jess believes that pre-owned games will remain the choice of many gamers across the UK. “With approximately 12.4 million people in the UK currently buying their games second-hand, it is going to take something massive for all of them to switch to only buying their games brand new,” she says.
Doug Richard, who featured as a Dragon in the first two series of the show, thinks the current Dragons made a mistake by not investing. He told the BBC that GaBoom presents a “clear and wonderful opportunity… Jessica, wherever you are, there’s one ex-Dragon who believes in you.”
It’s that time of the year again, everyone is slowly getting ready for yet another year of university life.
Freshers’ Week
We want to make Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs even better this year and a first step of doing so is getting more people involved. More students mean bigger events, bigger speakers and many more great things. So if you’re interested in Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs, we’re looking for students that would be willing to help us out spreading the word around campus during freshers’ week.
So if you can spare as little as one hour during freshers’ to help out, please drop Luka an E-mail at president AT royalhollowayentrepreneurs.com and get involved!
Gaboom on Dragons’ Den
Jess Ratcliffe will be trying to swap a part of her startup Gaboom for more investment on the BBC television program Dragons’ Den this upcoming Monday at 21:00, so make sure your DVR is set to record!
If you don’t know what Gaboom is all about, I recommend that you check out http://gaboom.co.uk.
More information about the TV episode can be found on the BBC Website.
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Virgin Media Pioneers is a video-blogging community for young entrepreneurs. Check out this latest video – David McQueen speaks to Jamal Edwards, founder of SBTV, one of the UK’s most popular youth media channels. For more interviews like this visit 
