Giving a hilarious and insightful speech, Sir Alec told an avid audience about his early days as an 8 year old ‘slave’ to his elder brother’s business ideas, his strong and supportive mother, his early passion for business and the confidence that was the key to his success.

He awarded the 2011 Enterprise Minigrants to:

Overall Winners – £2,000
Opera Holloway
Student Shops (Anna Bruce)

Winners – £1,000
Terrho (Nathan Nasrallah & Crystal Ho)
Paulius Satkauskas
Passengerfilms
Patricia Perez
Potters Lane (Anna Bruce)

Runners-up – £500
Neda Milanova & Elizabeth Nalumansi
Lauren McIlroy

Sir Alec was thanked by the Principal of Royal Holloway, Professor Paul Layzell, for the support he has given to the College over the years, and was presented with ‘Paintings from the Reign of Victoria’, the book which accompanied the Royal Holloway Collection tour.

For downloadable photos from the event visit http://picasaweb.google.com/rhentrepreneurs/SirAlecReedCBE17Mar11

Open to all Royal Holloway students and staff

Do you want to unlock the potential of an entrepreneurial idea? Do you have an idea for a sustainable, scalable commercial or social enterprise that needs an injection of cash to show that it could work?

If you think that you can develop an idea into a sustainable commercial or social enterprise, you can apply for a grant of up to £2,000. Teams consisting of at least one member of staff and one student are invited to apply for project funding. You are also encouraged to invite alumni to join your team.

The purpose of the scheme is to fund out-of-pocket expenses in developing an entrepreneurial idea with potential to become a sustainable, scalable commercial or social enterprise and which may prove sufficiently robust to attract follow-on WestFocus/PARK seed funding of up to £50,000.

The deadline for 2010-11 grant applications is 10am Monday 7^th March 2011.

Download the Minigrant guidelines and application form in Word format
Download the Minigrant guidelines and application form in PDF format

Email minigrants@rhul.ac.uk for more information.

Mini-grant clinics

If you would like some early feedback on your idea, you can meet with the Entrepreneurship Careers Adviser, John King. A drop-in service operates 10:00 to 11:00 every Tuesday in the Careers Service.

Get expert advice from one of the minigrants judges.

The £2,000 minigrants awards close at 5pm on Friday 19th March 2010. To give you the best chance of winning, one of the judges will be available this week to give you free one to one advice about your application. So if you have any questions about the application process, about terms and conditions, or just want to get your application into the best shape possible, make sure you take advantage of this opportunity to get some expert advice.

The advice clinics will be held in the Careers Service, Horton Building, at:

12pm-2pm Tuesday 16th March

1pm-3pm Friday 19th March

All information and application forms can be found here.