Venture Out 2010 finalists announced

11 Nov 2010

Invitation to attend awards and final judging of University's annual ideas competition on 19 November

The awards and final judging event will be held on Friday 19 November and will take place between 12 noon and 2pm in the MBS Alumni Club room, which is just off the bar located on the ground floor in MBS West.

All staff and students are welcome. To book a place:

• Go to Facebook and indicate that you wish to attend the event
  or
• Send an e-mail to ventureout@manchester.ac.uk

The event will begin with poster viewing at 12 noon. Ten finalists (five each in the Social Enterprise and 2015 categories) will be on hand to discuss their posters while judges will decide their final ranking. At 1pm the three Business Innovation finalists will deliver a three-minute pitch. Again a panel of judges will decide the final ranking.

Venture Out is an annual ideas competition for all University of Manchester students organised and run by the Manchester Enterprise Centre, 'Stimulating, nurturing and supporting student enterprise throughout The University of Manchester'.

Business Innovation Award finalists

Rewarding ideas that have commercial potential in the form of new products and/or services:

• Car Servicing comparison site (Andrew Jervis)
  Finding the best service for your car and your pocket
    
• Trusted Hands (Charlotte Thompson)
  Putting your household tasks and chores into experienced hands
    
• Local news goes mobile (David Stockley)
  Bringing local newspapers to digital devices

Social Enterprise Award finalists

Rewarding ideas that make a positive impact on the lives of individuals and/or communities:

• Red Earth Ghana: the Rural Toilet project (Tian Peng)
  Bringing hygiene and health to poor rural communities
    
• The Street Dance Project (Christina Rehana Taylor)
  Providing confidence and a ‘pathway to employment’ for underprivileged children
    
• Bownus - "a little means a lot is great" (Lydia-Grace Smith)
  More effective fund-raising for Cancer Charity Christies
    
• Church website building packages (James Abrahams)
  Bringing church life on-line
    
• Painting out Poverty (Andrew Jervis & Gareth Halstead)
  On-line platform to allow young African artists to sell their art to the world

2015 Award finalists

Rewarding ideas that will enable The University of Manchester to become one the world’s leading universities by achieving its 2015 goals:

• Tyrox (Alexander Bodini & Chris Richardson)
  Student online services, internal eBay, info sharing, events notification
    
• Teamwork/Group Work (Rebekah Jenkins)
  Better structuring of groupwork to give specific roles to individuals in a team
    
• UoM Electronic Organiser App (David Stockley)
  A computer application for PC or smartphone, copying system at Warwick
    
• Nobel Prize Group (Jordan Ayub)
  Identifying top students and arranging meetings with Nobel Prize Winners
    
• Live Filtered RSS Feed (Joseph Dent)
  Social networking feed with updates