Cash prizes to be won...

The next stage of the Entrepreneurs’ Challenge will begin today with an event in Tanaka Business School’s LT2 lecture theatre from 1’o’clock.

Following the highly successful and popular Ideas Challenge, the New Business Challenge element of the competition requires entrants to work to develop a full business plan.

Sabrina Keifer, Challenge Manager said:
“This is a new, separate part of the competition and anyone can join now – even those who weren’t in the Ideas Challenge.  We’re expecting a lot from this year’s challenge for two reasons: We had more entrants in the Ideas Challenge last year than ever before, producing great ideas, and today’s event is heavily over-subscribed.  Students are really keen to be involved, benefiting from the learning experience and possibly winning money in the process.”

Piers Robinson, a consultant to new ventures and co-founder of the Entrepreneurs’ Challenge 8 years ago, will present at the event on how to write winning business plans.  Piers’ career in innovation-related fields has taken him from Tanaka Business School, to consultant to new businesses and high-performance teams via an Imperial Innovations spin-out, making him an excellent speaker, providing guidance and expertise on entrepreneurship for free.

Following a wave of requests to attend the event, the Business School is using its advanced teaching resources to make the session available as a video pod-cast tomorrow (Thursday 17 January).  Those unable to attend the event will still be able to benefit from Piers’ advice as they embark on their team projects.

The support and advice for students continues throughout the New Business Challenge, right up to a special evening event on 13 March where the remainder of the £55,000 prize fund will be awarded.  Alongside weekly lectures on subjects relevant to the preparation of a business plan, mentoring will also be available for some entrants.

This mentoring is provided by the Sainsbury Management Fellows’ Society, a group that seeks to improve the business skills of engineers to improve business productivity, which will work with entrants as they develop their business plans.  Fellows of the society typically have engineering backgrounds in addition to achieving a professional business qualification, like a Masters in Business Administration. With strong academic backgrounds and experience in business, their advice is tremendously helpful to those developing plans, typically for the first time, in the Challenge.

About Piers Robinson
Piers completed his first degree at the University of Bristol before taking a number of commercial roles at PepsiCo then Diageo.
After completing an MBA at Tanaka Business School in 2000, Piers founded ‘Nuventis’ - a company working with early stage ventures to assist with the commercialisation process, specifically in the areas of business planning, fund-raising, team building and strategy development.  One of Nuventis’ first projects was to co-found the Entrepreneurs’ Challenge business plan competition, which has attracted entries from over 2,000 Imperial students since its launch in 2001.  Piers is a former Student Business Mentor in the Entrepreneurship Centre and still a regular speaker for the Challenge.
Piers has worked on the management team of a spin-out company founded by academics from Imperial College and Kings College, London. In 2007, Piers founded the Blade Group, a company consulting high-performance management teams.

About The Sainsbury Management Fellows’ Society
For more visit
http://www.smf.org.uk/