Engineers in Business (EIB) supported Aberystwyth University’s InvEnterPrize Student Ideas Competition for the first time. InvEnterPrize is open to all the university’s undergraduates, post-graduates and recent graduates and the competition seeks to reward the entrant with the ‘Best Business Idea’
InvEnterPrize is run in conjunction with and predominantly funded by the Alumni Office (DARO) which donates a £10,000 prize fund, which is now enhanced with the EIB funding to stimulate participation from students and graduates from the Departments of Computer Science, Maths and Physics. In addition to the support from DARO, the university partners with Aber Innovation and Enterprise Campus which offers free ‘office space’ for one year to businesses specifically allied to biosciences.
Winner: Rob Barry, MSc in Data Science, Creator of Mwnci - £3,000 Engineers in Business Prize.
Mwnci is a company which aims to support small and medium sized businesses to manage their data. The goal is to create an Excel add-in which allows users to upload data into their company’s private database which is hosted and managed by Mwnci. Once in the managed database, users will be provided with simple tools which will enable them to explore, analyse and perform health-checks on their data so that they have easy access to the reliable data that they need to make business decisions.
Mwnci is a company which aims to support small and medium sized businesses to manage their data. The goal is to create an Excel add-in which allows users to upload data into their company’s private database which is hosted and managed by Mwnci. Once in the managed database, users will be provided with simple tools which will enable them to explore, analyse and perform health-checks on their data so that they have easy access to the reliable data that they need to make business decisions.
Positive Feedback
Having the EIB fund as part of Aberystwyth University’s annual InvEnterPrize business ideas competition for students and recent graduates enabled us to use the £3,000 prize to boost interest in ideas generation and new business start-up in our Departments of Computer Science, Maths and Physics, disciplines with tremendous potential for innovation but departments from which interest in the competition has always lagged behind, for instance, the University’s Business School. As our first winner of the EIB section of InvEnterPrize, we will be using Rob Barry’s “story” to further promote engagement in our competition in future years.
Tony Ormes, Careers Consultant
Law, Criminology, History, Interpol & Enterprise
Aberystwyth University