The Queen\u2019s Students\u2019 Union\u2019s Enterprise SU team has supported 8 students and alumni in securing over \u00a3100,000 in funding from external competitions and grants this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enterprise SU has continued to nurture NI\u2019s most exciting entrepreneurial talent amidst the Covid-19 pandemic by providing start-up advice, mentoring, programmes, and competitions, such as QUB Dragons\u2019 Den, as well as offering support through external funding opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leon Gibson, Business Management student from Belfast, took First Place and \u00a335k in The Techstart X Creator Fund Challenge for his startup \u2018MyRafflr\u2019, a raffle-based marketplace facilitating highly secure and transparent digital raffles for individuals, charities, and organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking about the support received from the Enterprise SU Team, Leon Gibson said:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t speak highly enough of the team at Enterprise SU and the support they have provided me over the last few months… I would encourage anyone with anything from an initial idea to a developing stage start up to reach out and make use of the resources available\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Peter Gillan, Mechanical Engineering student from Ballymena, secured Third Place and \u00a310k for his start-up \u2018Atlas Smartbell\u2019, a smart adjustable dumbbell that empowers people to receive personal training from their living room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of the Enterprise SU Team, <\/em>Peter Gillan said:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Enterprise SU team has proven invaluable in helping secure our team\u2019s first funding. With their guidance, we were able to communicate our vision and convince investors that our ideas have real commercial potential. We\u2019re looking forward to continuing our relationship with the Enterprise SU team as we bring our product to market!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the other external competition and grant winners that Enterprise SU have supported this year include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shea Quinn, PhD student from Newry, who won \u00a310k in Catalyst\u2019s Co-Founder Competition for \u2018Bioliberty,\u2019 an assistive glove that will benefit both sufferers of hand weakness and occupational therapists to accommodate remote hand therapy. Shea was one of 4 QUB students to receive this \u00a310k grant from Catalyst, Belfast as part of their \u2018Co-Founders\u2019 competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonathan Smyth, Software Development student from Belfast, who won a \u00a310k Techstart Proof of Concept Grant for \u2018Linc Technology\u2019 the world’s first digital visual, hand sizing smartphone system for the jewellery and watch e-commerce space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Omar Salem, Aerospace Engineering student from Dublin, who won \u20ac10,000 in The Student Entrepreneur Awards for his joint start-up \u2018Field of Vision,\u2019 a product that uses artificial intelligence to gather all of the action of a live sports match, and broadcast this to purpose-built touch-based devices to enable visually impaired sports fans to follow and experience the game with their own senses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking about her role in encouraging and supporting students in their start-up aspirations Francesca Morelli, Enterprise SU\u2019s Enterprise Development Officer, said:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \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 this year. These wins are so well deserved, and this vital funding will help with costs as the students continue to develop their startups.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Queen\u2019s Students\u2019 Union\u2019s Enterprise SU team has supported 8 students and alumni in securing over \u00a3100,000 in funding from external competitions and grants this year. Enterprise SU has continued to nurture NI\u2019s most exciting entrepreneurial talent amidst the Covid-19 pandemic by providing start-up advice, mentoring, programmes, and competitions, such as QUB Dragons\u2019 Den, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":699,"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":[237,66],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-programmes","8":"category-upskilling-opportunities","9":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2021\/07\/blog-cover-e1641294821844-2.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B2ST-au","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","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=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4554,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/4554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}