Royal Holloway Entrepreneurs- a student-led organization which inspires and empowers students at Royal Holloway- is looking for its next paid president.

You will need:

• Excellent communication and leadership skills
• Ambition to drive the organisation forwards
• Passion to motivate and empower other students
• Marketing, fundraising and event management skills
• Time, budget and people management skills
• Confidence to collaborate effectively with Royal Holloway Staff and external stakeholders
•    Belief in the importance of supporting student entrepreneurship.

You will:

• Directly manage a committee of ten enterprising students and a wider membership of 1000 students
• Plan and organise regular events for students with local national and international speakers.
• Turn a thriving student group into a profit making business
• Become a respected leader and push forward Royal Holloway’s long standing entrepreneurial heritage.

Applicants must be enthusiastic self-starters with a will to learn new skills and adapt themselves to new challenges.

Applicants should be a member of the College student body at the time of application.

This is an 11 month fixed term contract starting on July1st, and you will be employed part-time (17.5 hours per week). Hours and locations will vary and some late night working will be required. The salary is pro rata the full time salary of £19.371 including London Allowance.

Please submit your CV and a covering letter to rose.hackett@rhul.ac.uk by 12 noon on the 24^thMay 2012.  We will be conducting all of the interviews on the 31^st May 2012. 

EnterprisingU has now launched!

 Do you have a great idea and want help in creating a business plan?

Enter EnterprisingU’s national business plan competition and use the online tool to test and develop your business idea and help you become investment ready.

www.enterprisingu.com

Do you want £25,000 to kick-start your business?

We have over 200 investors looking to invest in student startups.  At the end of May 2012, fifteen of the best ideas will be selected for pitching in the semi-finals.  Five will go forward to the national finals, where there is £40,000 in prizes to be won.

Get started today and get your business investment-ready!

Creativity and Entrepreneurism are perfect together. On 24^th May you’ll see how.

InSight, your incredible creative opportunity, is full of big speakers, exciting opportunities and interactive workshops.

Branding, music industry, fashion, CV clinics, finance, challenges , fresh student market, workshops exhibitions and more.

It’s all yours for the taking. Sign up, it’ll be the best thing you do today.

Including: 

Business 101 for Creatives: It is an unavoidable fact that however fantastic your product or service.  A good business becomes great when you have thorough market research and efficient business planning.

Make sure the odds are in their favour by attending this event. Entrepreneur Michael Jacobsen will help you get to grips with issues including how to really target your customers, identifying your USP against competitors, deciding upon a pricing strategy and keeping your admin house in order – ‘Business 101 for Creative’s’!

Headstart: How to get a good first job: This short interactive workshop is designed for undergraduates at university. It will provide focused, pragmatic advice and practical support on how to stand out from your peers and get your first job. Topics covered include: employability and the world of work; your USP and how to sell yourself; transferable skills for employers; and top tips for CVs and covering letters.
Stand out talent: Making the most of the web to make your work do the talking
Whether setting up your own business or trying to source some of your first freelancing work it has never been easier to get started than by using the web to your advantage. In this session you’ll learn how to network effectively online to source clients and customers as well as how to make your portfolio stand out from the crowd.

Next Big Thing: NBT Music presents the truth behind the music industry.  Learn the best-kept secrets of how to become a successful artist.  With a background on how the industry has developed since the rise of the Internet, it is discussed how the future of music is anticipated, and how you can become the ‘Next Big Thing’.

CV Clinics: Lifestep will offer personal coaching sessions looking directly at student CVs. Students can book 5min individual sessions. Students are expected to bring their CV with them on the day.

dojit Games Design Jam: Games are fun, making games and coming up with the concept is great fun and also is a career option. So come and have a go at this session.In this session we will be creating a game concepts and pitching it to a panel of experts.This will be a great way to show off you creative capability and also understanding on the online business world. The winning team will have to show their creativity, market focus and be able to pitch to a panel of experts.

Creative Communities for a Connected Generation: Angelica Robinson, the inspirational young entrepreneur behind new start-up Jobs4Creatives will be speaking alongside Jody Day, PR and Communications Expert about how the connected generation can use social media, networks and communities to better their chance of getting a creative job. Including; Building Your Professional Persona, Peer to Peer Networking, Online Communities, Thinking Before Applying.

Commercialise your work: So you’ve finished your course and bagged a degree, what next? Making the jump from the classroom to the commercial world can be a daunting step, but it needn’t be that way. Get insider knowledge on how to prepare yourself, your designs and learn what those in the business look for. Smart tips, technical insights and general knowledge to give yourself a head start. Mario Forsyth, Director at Graduate Collection, a company that specialises in working with graduate designers, is hosting breakout sessions on how to commercialise your work.

www.insightevent.eventbrite.com

Business student or not, the Entrepreneurship Summer School is made for you!

Organized by Google and ThinkYoung, it is built by current entrepreneurs for future entrepreneurs.

The ESS is not a classic school: no teacher, no lecture style courses, no boring power point presentations, but real entrepreneurs sharing their experience with you, giving you an inside view on the adventure you are about to begin.
This unique course will take place in Brussels from the 9^th to 13^th of July.

Join for a one in a lifetime experience:

·         meet successful entrepreneurs,

·         build your own workshop and get what you want to learn,

·         take part in a debate in the EU parliament, exchanging with Policy Makers, Media and Multinationals.

·         exceptional opportunity to network (last edition had participants from 16 different nationalities)

Have a look at their website ; and apply now by registering on this page . They will then contact you to guide you through the selection process.

3 deadlines will be applied: April 30^th – May 13^th – June 13^th. The sooner you apply the more chance you have to be selected.

Be fast, places fill up quickly.
alice@thinkyoung.eu  will be happy to answer your questions.

Apply for your slice of Richard Reed’s investment fund, up to £1m availablehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/beonashow/

The application process is open for a limited time so if you’ve got a great business idea apply asap!

Richard Reed, co-founder of innocent Drinks, has up to £1million that he is making available to entrepreneurs with brilliant business ideas.

He wants to give the next generation of Great British entrepr

eneurs a helping hand in getting started.

To take part in this exciting new BBC Three TV series, you need to be over 18 and have either started a small business or have a great idea.
Our twitter is: @BYOBoss_BBC3

Facebook link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Be-Your-Own-Boss-BBC-Three/365962350095405

This year, there were 171 entries involving about 244 students, who could enter individually or in teams. Many students entered as part of their degree programmes, while others are involved in entrepreneurs’ societies or enterprise mentoring schemes. Students ranged from Foundation degree to PhD level and crossed every discipline.

Awards were presented on Wednesday 15 February at a ceremony at the University of Westminster. First prize winners received £1,000 and the runners-up got £250 to help them further their ideas.

Martha Mador, Head of Enterprise Education at Kingston University, and manager of the West Focus Entrepreneurship Centre said: “Each year we get more entries, and the ideas become better and more diverse. They are often demanding and challenging ideas addressing genuine needs.”

The 2012 prize winners were:

Victoria Bloom, Kingston University

A “touch-free” browsing of medical images in hospital operating theatres to save time and prevent the spread of infection.

Joe Shellard, Royal Holloway University

An innovative website and app to let people buy tickets for school plays.

Vassileios Balntas, Surrey University

Sleep apnea is a very serious condition that affects around 7% of the population, and can lead even to heart failure. With the proposed system the patient can record the sleep sounds he/she makes overnight using a mobile phone, After that, the sound recording will be uploaded  to a website. The web app can extract sleep statistics and detect apneas. The final diagnosis is sent to an expert for verification, and also to the patient.

David Bullen, Alex Murphy, Chloe Collins, Helena Kirby, Lois Pearse,

Royal Holloway University,

A theatrical enterprise dedicated to the illumination of Europe’s cultural heritage, aiming to spark the imagination of Britain’s youth.

Lucia Froud, Hye J Baek , Laura Anselmi , Lucia Froud , Yuxin Yang

Kingston University           

Popcup is a reinvention of the cup sleeve; a reusable and adjustable way to help hot beverage drinkers protect their finger tips and tongues with a unique heat sensitive indicator.

Asitha Jayawardena, Kingston University

The Sustainable University One-stop Shop (http://www.sustainableuni.kk5.org/) offers guidance, information and inspiration for promoting and facilitating Sustainability in Higher Education worldwide.

Patreese Erskine, Royal Holloway University.

My idea is to bring something revolutionary to the shoe market. I aim to create a range of high fashion shoes that can be worn as flattering high-heels and as flat pumps; due to a fully detachable heel.

Stephen Pelling, Royal Holloway University also won £250 for his Murder Mystery App idea.

We’ve got the videos here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Enjoy!

Televised Startup Competition – Here is

the Story

As a graduate from RHUL (MSc Business Information Systems class of 2003) who has just won a startup competition, I thought I would share my experience with you…and of course also promote my new business.

Success Story 2012 on RTL Luxembourg

The yearly competition is called Success Story and has 90 entrants. A panel (this year 4 business executives from Luxembourg) then selects 24 out of the 90. Out of the 8 finalists, 3 winners are selected by the panel. Next to 15.000 EUR price money, the winners get access to coaching in the field they (and the panel) feel is necessary for their business to take off. Finally, the progress of the business is followed 1, 3, 6 and 12 months down the line on national TV in Luxembourg.

You may think – awesome PR opportunity and nice pocket money…sure; it is – but there is more to it than that. In our case, we did not realize this until we were amongst the final 8. I will go into further detail about this in just a bit. I think it is time to tell you about the project which we entered this competition with (it will make it easier to understand as I proceed).

Video Surveillance for Consumers and Micro Businesses

Broadband internet, video surveillance hardware and cloud computing has allowed video surveillance systems to not only to be something for the wealthy. Cost of ownership of a well-functioning video surveillance system has been dramatically reduced. Here is why:

1. A local video surveillance recorder (DVR) is no longer needed on site. The video recordings from the surveillance cameras can be transferred securely and in real-time via the owner’s existing broadband internet to data centers.
2. Cabling premises are no longer required as the surveillance cameras have wi-fi connections which can connect to the owner’s existing wireless network…just like you connect other devices to the network, such as a laptop.
3. Alarm verification services are no longer needed, as smartphone apps allow video surveillance system owners to see themselves what is going on when they want and where ever they want.

Unless you are familiar with the technical aspects, this can be pretty hard to understand, so here is a video that explains what we do and how it works in plain language:

To cut it short. With SurviCam, we have not re-invented video surveillance. We have simply brought it to a point, where anybody can afford, install and use a video surveillance system. Wireless broadband internet and smartphones are becoming the norm in our part of the world, which leaves the camera as the only ‘new’ device needed to get going. At 199 EUR for a camera (which is not your average ‘copied in China’ product) and 21.99 EUR per month subscription fee – not to mention no installation costs as people can do it themselves – this is something everyone with a desire to video surveil can afford. Now back to the competition.

Holy S*** this is for real

It was my business partner Ronny Beweng, who had the idea to enter the competition. I agreed and did not give it much thought after he had submitted our application. We had been working on this project in our spare time for 18 months. Sure it was time for the project to get launched, but we wanted to get it 100% right before doing so (that turned out to be a wrong approach). A month later, Ronny calls me to say that we have made it to the stage where 24 entrants are in the race and that we have to present the project on TV. This is when it hits you: We are going to be on TV convincing a panel of experienced business executives that our product and service is the best thing since sliced bread – yet it is not 100% where we want it to be. We decided to really give this project our full attention for the next weeks until we would have our 10 minutes pitch at the TV studios in front of the panel. At this point, it was still partly an ego thing: ‘We cannot go on TV and try and blague our way through it – and then be embarrassed on national TV by the panel’. Things were made clear and many of the ‘annoying but important’ items on the todo list were executed upon. We did our 10 minutes pitch and every member of the panel voted for our project to go through to the final 8.

The panel gave us the following three tasks to execute upon:

1. Marketing that did not only speak to tech-savvy people
2. A finance plan
3. A sales plan

In the final…but with homework

So we now had three weeks to get all this done. There was absolutely no way that the two of us could get all that done in three weeks if it was to be done properly. So we contacted people we know who are active in the three fields mentioned above.

Marketing for non tech-savvy people

For the marketing task, we contacted our friend Philippe Gruber who has a marketing and communication company called Fish & Chips. We told them what we want to achieve and who we wanted to target. Together we came up with a good plan. I cannot share everything with you, but I can mention that we redesigned the logo. Here it is:

In addition the tag-line ‘Online Video Surveillance’ was changed to ‘Keep an eye on it’. Hear more about this later from Philippe in the video.

Finance Plan

OK, this is the worst one of them all for us. Both Ronny and I are really not good with numbers. I did have some finance classes at RHUL, but to be honest – not much of it stayed in my head. Again – our network was the answer. Frederic Muller and his awesome team of finance people put together a spreadsheet where if you enter a few sales assumptions, it spits out all the information which the finance guys in the jury will want to know. Yes – we are bad with numbers, but not that bad that we do not know what makes business sense and what does not That meant the pricing we had made prior to the competition could stay as they made good business sense.

Sales Plan

This is where Ronny is just plain awesome. He is very good at selling and he knows many retail business owners. So we came up with a reseller programme. We went out and pitched it to some local retail businesses and they went on board straight away. You can also see this in the video.

Homework conclusion

The amount of work that was made during the three weeks was insane. We had very little sleep and the patience of Ronny’s wife was put to a serious test…it all went well. Knowing something in theory and actually experiencing it are two very separate things. When you read about entrepreneurship, you always read that you need to network and use the network you have. It is so true. OK – we managed to get the people who helped us onboard as we promised them to get on national TV in return for their help – but still…I am not sure we would have won without them. Thanks again to them (I am sure they will read this as well).

The Final

As you will see in the video, we are not nervous – we are s#!*ing ourselves. At this point we knew that it was no longer about not making fools out of ourselves. We actually had a really good chance to get SurviCam off to a really good start by winning this competition. I was so nervous that I had to fall-back to reading from my notes…and for a dyslexic person under pressure, that is not a good outcome. Then they showed us some tests of our product being put into the hands of test-persons. One went well while the other one was not as flawless. The system worked (we know it does), but they had trouble installing it despite it being the most simple process in the world (at least in our eye). They of course used that against us. It was good, because we both forgot everything about being nervous and just spoke from the heart. That is stuff that works! Nevertheless, the 15 minutes pitch in the final were the shortest 15 mins of our lives. We stayed to watch the remaining 7 contestants and we knew it would be a close race…but as it turns out, in our favor. Here is the video:

After the final

Now where the show has finished, there is still a lot of work to do. We have signed up more resellers (including a chain of Apple Premium Resellers). Our terms and conditions are being re-written by lawyers. That costs a fortune and is somewhat boring, but essential for our business as we make our money on the subscriptions. We are not only going to re-design our website, but also change the content completely in several languages (that is also why you will still see the old website if you visit it). And to avoid a similar scenario from the 2nd test in the video, we re-wrote our manuals…so far they seem to be good as we get extremely few calls. From the 5-15 March I will be in San Francisco and New York to meet with business angels and venture capitalists. As you can gather, there is a lot going on – we love it and it is very interesting.

What now?

Join us on facebook to stay up-to-date with SurviCam. We engage our facebook community in some of our business decisions. To get input from the people like the ones who reads the content on this website is worth a lot to us, and you will have the chance to also be in touch with stuff that is not too academic – but something that is out there and 110% for real.

Visit the SurviCam website here