{"id":1100,"date":"2022-12-19T12:40:04","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T12:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/enterprisesu\/?p=1100"},"modified":"2025-03-26T13:29:54","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T13:29:54","slug":"invent-awards-4-qub-su-enterprise-student-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/2022\/12\/19\/invent-awards-4-qub-su-enterprise-student-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"INVENT Awards &#8211; 4 QUB SU Enterprise Student Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On Thursday 1<sup>st<\/sup> September, SU Enterprise attended the INVENT Awards where they supported eight QUB SU Enterprise students from seven teams who had reached the final stages of this annual startup competition run by Catalyst. With a prize fund of \u00a347,000, INVENT recognises and rewards local innovations and proof of concept ideas that have the greatest commercial potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Queen\u2019s Students\u2019 Union Enterprise students and alumni came away with a total of \u00a336,000 worth of equity-free funding to support their student startups. Winners included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Peter Gilleece with Vikela Body Armour; Overall INVENT Winner 2022 (\u00a326,000 equity-free funding) &amp; Winner of the Elevator Pitch Award (\u00a31000 equity-free funding)<\/li><li>Peter Gillan with Atlas Smart Technologies; Winner of Student INVENT (\u00a31000 equity-free funding)<\/li><li>Omar Salem with Field of Vision; Winner of the Inclusive Innovation Award (\u00a33000 equity-free funding)<\/li><li>Jonathan Smyth with Linc Technologies; Winner of the Consumer Software Award (\u00a35000 equity-free funding)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"699\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2022\/12\/Invent-winner.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1101\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2022\/12\/Invent-winner.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2022\/12\/Invent-winner-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2022\/12\/Invent-winner-768x537.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Peter Gilleece\u2019s innovation, Vikela Body Armour, focusses on comfortable and lightweight body armour that aims to provide complete protection for everyone. Winner of SU Enterprise\u2019s What\u2019s the Big Idea competition in 2019 for \u2018Most Innovative Idea,\u2019 and runner-up in QUB Dragons\u2019 Den\u00a02020, Peter has made tremendous steps since then having amassed over half a million pounds in funding to support the development of his innovation. He graduated from MEng Mechanical Engineering just last year and has been working full time at Vikela Body Armour ever since employing a small team and preparing for launch later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Judith Maguire, Student\u2019s Union Enterprise Manager has said \u201cWe\u2019re so pleased to see the continued success of our students in external competitions. Being involved in programmes such as INVENT is a valuable incentive for entrepreneurs at an early stage to continue developing their business ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Francesca Morelli, Enterprise Development Coordinator added, \u201cWe are inspired every day by the students and alumni who come to us with their ideas and aspirations, and I\u2019m delighted that so many of those that we have supported have been rewarded. These wins are so well deserved, and this vital funding will help with costs as the students continue to develop their startups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Student\u2019s Union Enterprise would like to extend their congratulations to all Queen\u2019s students who reached the final of this highly competitive programme and encourage entrepreneurial students coming to QUB this year to get in touch should they wish to follow in their footsteps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday 1st September, SU Enterprise attended the INVENT Awards where they supported eight QUB SU Enterprise students from seven teams who had reached the final stages of this annual startup competition run by Catalyst. With a prize fund of \u00a347,000, INVENT recognises and rewards local innovations and proof of concept ideas that have the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-student-life","8":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2022\/12\/Invent-winner-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B2ST-hK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4521,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1100\/revisions\/4521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}