All posts by Althea Taylor-Salmon

case studies

Getting Ahead With Mentoring

When studying and working towards a successful career, whatever the industry, there are two essential components to reaching your goals. The first port of call is the learning; all the theories, concepts, facts and figures that make up the armoury for your profession. These are the elements of success gained through higher education. However, the second element is more elusive, but just as essential to progress in one’s career – experience. Experience can often be hard to come by, yet having it on your CV is a must for most employers. This is where mentoring can help.

SMF has helped facilitate the career progression of many talented and ambitious young engineers over 30 years. We believe that mentoring can help the mentee stay focused on their goals, boost industry and technical knowledge, and expand personal skills set, enabling them to fast-track their careers and even surpass their original goals.

Case in Point: Chris Shelley and Arnaud Doko
Arnaud Doko, a 27-year-old graduate from the University of Bath, having gained a MEng in Mechanical Engineering in 2016, had his heart set on a mentor with a background in technology and entrepreneurship.  Not only was being mentored important to Arnaud, as emulating role models had been crucial to his development up to that point, he also aspired to be a mentor himself one day. This is what SMF looks for, talented young engineers who are passionate about success, but who also want to give back to the engineering industry.

Arnaud’s passion for technology and entrepreneurship stems from his family.  He explained: “My goal was always to gain enough knowledge and experience to become a technology-centric entrepreneur, as my father is and his father was before him.  I chose the field of mechanical engineering because I perceived it to be objectively useful, sufficiently general for my purposes, and capable of giving me the technical literacy to understand the technologies of our time.”

Arnaud started to expand his skills and experience to further his career ambitions. At university, he became involved in Engineers Without Borders, public-speaking, and education-outreach clubs. He also had huge fun helping to design, build, and race with the Human-Powered Submarine Club!  He rounded off these exploits with an ERASMUS exchange semester in Lyon, where his final year project was on a zirconia ceramic.

Arnaud also undertook a placement year within his degree, gaining industry experience at an engineering design consultancy.  During that year, he applied to the Royal Academy of Engineering for an Engineering Leadership Advanced Award (ELAA), a financial award given to engineering students, at UK universities, who have shown strong academic performance and leadership potential.

He continued, “I knew that my career success would depend not just on how much I invested in myself and my development, but, more importantly, how much others would be willing to invest in me as well.  I saw the ELAA as an opportunity to receive merit-based support to that effect. I was thrilled to be accepted, and used the scholarship to attend several career-developing courses/conferences – a personal highlight was attending the 2015 Global Grand Challenges Summit in Beijing.”

Through the ELAA Programme, Arnaud met SMFs who are involved in the selection process and workshops and quickly realised that he could learn a lot from them.  He asked around, looking for an SMF who was based near Bath and who had experience in technology entrepreneurship and was introduced to Chris Shelley, CEO at Dymag Performance Wheels, by  SMF Adam Bazire.  Chris became Arnaud’s mentor and the rest, as they say, is history!

What does mentoring look like?
The beauty of mentoring is that there is no set structure to it. As long as you are ambitious, open, receptive and ready to learn, then a mentoring relationship can take any form you wish.  In the case of Chris and Arnaud, they would meet two to three times a year to discuss Arnaud’s career plans and to explore any questions he had.

Chris also took Arnaud on as an intern, something new for his company at the time.  He was given the opportunity to observe the office work environment, work in the factory, and shadow Chris on the day-to-day business.   Arnaud explained what led to his internship: “As the summer between my third and fourth year of university approached, I was looking for internships to gain further experience.  I wanted something in a new field of technology: Dymag’s latest innovation is a carbon fibre car wheel and that seemed like a great opportunity. I asked Chris if he would consider me interning in the company and he agreed, saying I would need to get “stuck in” right away and work hard – I was ready for that challenge!

“I worked at Dymag for two months and made myself generally useful to the staff – anything that needed doing, I would volunteer for it. I worked in production, did some marketing work, managed some small projects and started learning more about the component-level testing of wheels. The fact that I speak fluent German helped to secure a meeting for Dymag with the German working group of wheel companies, OEMs, TUV and the Frauenhofer Institute, which is developing a common testing standard for carbon fibre wheels.

“I also undertook remote work on Intellectual Property for Dymag during my final year of university.  I worked on a wide prior-art patent search of existing carbon wheel technologies and also helped collate information for the final patent text, which Dymag filed. Dymag’s patent has since been granted in the UK and Germany and is pending in several other countries. This was exciting and incredibly valuable experience,” said Arnaud.

Chris was extremely taken with Arnaud as an intern. He was drawn to his positive attitude, enthusiasm, high intellect and his willingness to learn. He was always willing to roll up his sleeves and charmed colleagues and clients alike with his engaging style and sense of humour.  This is not only proof that a strong sense of endeavour and positivity is a winning attitude, but also a shining example of how a mentor can serve as the elusive ‘foot in the door’ to the industry.

From intern to full-timer  
Not surprisingly, Arnaud’s relationship with Dymag did not end with the internship.  Arnaud continued: “The opportunity to join the company full-time came from my positive internship experience – I liked the company and the company liked me. Chris offered me a job and I considered it carefully. I was inspired by the passion in the company and I knew from my internship that I would be given responsibilities that would stretch me and allow me to grow quickly. Plus, I already knew I would have a great boss from whom I would continue to learn.”

In his role as a Project Engineer Arnaud is managing projects for OEMs, which include wheel testing for customer projects and core R&D.  He has also been involved in detailed design work on the wheels and on the productionisation of wheel designs in the factory.  Alongside these technical roles, he has also become involved in sales, representing Dymag at large automotive exhibitions and liaising directly with OEM customers and B2B business partners. Arnaud said:“One of the most thrilling experiences was setting up and attending meetings between Chris and a large cast wheel company to discuss the possibilities of working together on specific projects.”

What lessons do you learn from a mentor?
In a nutshell, what you get from a mentor that you can’t get from any book or lecture is the expertise of someone who is doing the job you aspire to.  Theory is all well and good, but application of those theories is quite another thing. In the case of Arnaud, he learnt a great deal from mentoring.  Chris shared the details of his career trajectory, explored his own career failures and successes, and helped to plan Arnaud’s own route to entrepreneurial success.  Let’s take a look at the top three lessons learnt on his mentorship journey:

  • It’s all about sales! The number one job of the entrepreneur is to sell their vision to the world, be that to customers, investors, business partners, employees or the general public.
  • Honesty is everything! When it’s time to have difficult conversations with customers or business partners, you stand a good chance of making progress by being open and honest about the situation. This was a lesson Arnaud learnt by observing Chris’ behaviour and conduct with customers and business partners.
  • ‘Multi-tasking’ is not a dirty phrase! It can be tempting to try and only focus on one thing at a time, but business is rarely so simple. The key is to find the most impactful activities to focus on.

Chris also gained much from the experience. He came to appreciate just how valuable mentoring and internships are to the point that now there are several interning opportunities at Dymag, both in engineering and in business. A good mentorship should be a symbiotic process, one that both parties stand to gain from.

Arnaud’s impact as a young professional
Arnaud is a great example of how, with drive, tenacity, enthusiasm and a mentor, you can shoot up the ladder of success quicker than you might think. Here’s what Chris had to say about his newest team member:

“Arnaud is a very self-motivated and ambitious young man, a natural leader of our product testing and certification programme.  Also, he has become a leading contributor to Society of Automotive Engineers working group, developing industry standards for the testing of carbon composite wheels.  I have received very positive feedback from other committee members with over 30 years’ experience.  They compliment him on his extraordinary contribution. He is a born leader and ultimately, he will use his engineering skills and work experience to pursue his dream of developing his own technology business.”

The final word from Arnaud Doko
“Mentoring has helped to accelerate my learning; specifically it has supplemented my engineering knowledge with transferable business principles. Through Chris’ guidance and his willingness to continually expose me to new opportunities, I have leapfrogged ahead in my personal development as an engineer and eventual businessman.  Any young person trying to establish a career could benefit from mentorship, but you must be proactive about it and lead the relationship into the direction you want, so your mentor knows how they can support you. If you don’t naturally have access to mentors, put in the effort to find them!  It’s a great return on investment on your time – I owe my entire professional trajectory of the last three years to the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chris Shelley.”

Learn more about the SMF MBA Scholarship scheme.

Press Releases

SMFs Mentor Engineering Movers & Shakers

Sainsbury Management Fellows have been mentoring talented young engineers for over 30 years and we are delighted to announce that Chetan Kotur, who has been mentored by SMF Adam Bazire for many years, is one of five engineers to win a RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year prize.  Awarded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, with support from the Worshipful Company of Engineers, the winners are awarded £3,000 each for making an outstanding impact in their field early in their career.

Adam Bazire met Chetan in 2009 when he became his mentor for the RAEng’s Engineering Leadership Scholarship (formerly the Engineering Leadership Awards).  Adam said: “From my first meeting with Chetan it was clear that he was destined to be a significant individual within the world of automotive engineering, and an outstanding advocate for engineering generally. My observations over the subsequent nine years have reinforced this opinion. It’s wonderful news that he has been recognised as a Young Engineer of the Year.”

Chetan is currently working at the forefront of the automotive industry as the CEO’s Assistant at Polestar, a Volvo electric car startup that he helped launch at the end of 2017 in Shanghai. Following his passion for cars, Chetan uniquely combines creative flair, design skills and deep engineering understanding.  He is rapidly emerging as a bright, dynamic and driven future leader in the automotive industry.

At age 16, Chetan faced a career dilemma, between following his family’s tradition of studying medicine or pursuing his interest in designing cars. After being selected for the Channel 4 documentary Vocation, Vocation, Vocation, he chose to follow his passion for cars.  He excelled academically, achieving a first-class degree in Automotive Engineering from Loughborough University.

Having secured a place on the Volvo Cars Global Graduate Programme, Chetan progressed quickly as a Studio Engineer designing new cars.  He has led the design of autonomous vehicle projects for Volvo and worked on the development of the company’s first autonomous steering and braking safety system.  He also presented Volvo’s future technology strategy to Swedish Governmental Authorities – ensuring funding for cross-industry technology development.

Chetan promotes STEM activities in the North East to help inspire the next generation of engineers.  He founded the Future Engineers Scheme at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, which over the last five years has given over 200 students a head start in engineering.  He was also awarded an Engineering Leadership Advanced Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering, allowing him to travel the world developing leadership skills. Five years on, Chetan continues to support and mentor a boy he met in a Rio de Janeiro, Favela who dreams of becoming a car designer.

To read the full story on all the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year winners, visit the Royal Academy of Engineering’s website.

 

Blog

Mental Health in the Workplace: Changing Attitudes

A hard-nosed businessman struts into the heart of the city for work. He works long hours away from his family, his job is everything! Working lunches, high targets, oppressive corporate bosses and hard-won deals; none of this bothers him because he is bulletproof! No tough work environment can penetrate his hard exterior; he is successful therefore he is happy.

This is a stereotype many of us will recognise.  This image is not only outdated, but it was always a work of fiction.  Because of such images, we have struggled to talk about mental health. They are part of the reason women have had to fight so hard for success and inclusion in the global workplace, and men have not been encouraged to express struggle or emotion. A work regime like the one described above may soon be a thing of the past, as companies are now recognising the importance of good mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

How Does the Workplace Affect Mental Health?
Mental health issues brought on by the workplace are extremely common. The impact, of course, cannot solely be measured by its financial impact. However, this statistic illustrates the extent of the issue quite well: Research shows that last year (2017), 70 million work days were lost to poor mental health. The cost of this to employers in the UK was around £2.5 billion. If that is not an incentive for companies to invest in good mental health practices, we don’t know what is.

“Work is at the very core of contemporary life for most people, providing financial security, personal identity, and an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to community life.”  Source: Nations for Mental Health, 2015.

How can our work life not affect our mental health?  It’s the place where we spend most of our time; it’s not a part of our life that is easy to ‘write off’ if it is working against our mental health.  When a workplace has no provision or recognition for mental health issues, the culture and atmosphere of the business can become toxic; entirely results driven, and not employee satisfaction driven.  The most successful companies in the mental health arena have one simple thing in common; they have specific resources and rules in place to deal with mental health. They have made it a priority. These provisions often include:

  • Means-Tested Flexibility. Some companies have started to offer flexible hours and responsibilities to those whose work-life balance requirements are more specific.  For example, single parents or carers. 
  • In-House Mental Health Services. Many companies have councillors and other mental health professionals on hand to deal with cases of poor mental health. 
  • Open Door Policy. This is an old idiom but often does not mean what it says. A genuine ‘open door policy’ invites employees to feel comfortable about coming to employers with problems.

Even if, as an employee, you never find a use for these provisions, their presence reassures staff that their wellbeing is being considered. 

The Shift in Attitude
During the last few years, companies have awoken to the importance of prioritising mental health in their businesses. Studies, such as the ACAS Mental Health in the Workplace report show that good employee wellbeing boosts productivity and profit.  Happier people are nicer to each other, meaning a more positive workplace, and staff who tend to go the extra mile to make valuable contributions to their organisations.

How to Implement Mental Health Provisions in Your Workplace
Implementing these practices is not a small task, it is something that your business will have to commit to and spend significant time on.  The process has many intricacies, but when stripped back, it can be illustrated as a four-stage procedure:

  1. Analysing the workplace mental health needs: You will need to take a look at what issues your employees typically face. Are there any common problems? Do these problems stem directly from their work environment?
  1. Developing a policy: You will need to decide on a vision; what do you want your mental health stance to look like? What are your values? You will also need to define your objectives, what you want to achieve, in order to liaise with and convince your stakeholders.
  1. Strategies to implement policy: Once you know what you want to achieve you simply have to work out what to do in order to achieve it! Will there be changes in workplace rules? Will you invest in a social element for your workplace? Which mental health professionals should you get on board?
  1. Implementation and evaluation: This step will be constant. You should regularly be evaluating the effectiveness of what you have put into place and be open to change if needed.

To learn more about these stages, and for any other advice on implementing mental health policies, take a look at this comprehensive document from the World Health Organisation: Mental Health Policies and Programmes in the Workplace.

Thankfully, mental health is gradually becoming de-stigmatised and recognised as an essential part of staff welfare.

Blog

The Unlauded Benefits of Soft Skills

Too often, graduates from higher education and business schools are not taught to acquire soft skills before going into the workplace. Their focus is typically on training and education, alongside job preparation and technical skills.  However, without the appropriate soft skills, their work is an uphill challenge that comes with a steep learning curve. In this post, we take a look at the soft skills graduates need to begin learning, and why.

Communication
Writing for Salesforce, Stuart Leung explains the problem:  “Despite the supposed ‘disconnect’ of the digital age, humanity is still a very social species, and unless we as individuals understand how to communicate, cooperate, and coordinate with others, we are at a significant disadvantage – especially in the workplace.  In fact, according to Mark Murphy (author of Hire for Attitude), 46% of new hires fail in the first 18 months, and of those new hires, 89% fail for reasons associated with attitude.”

Clearly, employers are going to be looking for candidates with soft skills like communication, especially if it curbs an alarming 46% fail rate.  Attitude problems are perhaps harder to predict in a new graduate, but a good communicator is likely not going to suffer from these as severely.  Conversely, companies that have a glut of effective communicators are far less likely to lose key employees.

Learning the intangible
Rosemary Haefner of CareerBuilder (@haefner_r) says: “Saying that you’re a team player is not enough; you have to show it.  Provide an example of how you worked on a team to accomplish a particular goal.  Provide an example of a high-pressure situation that you handled with ease.”

Teamwork is just one of several soft skills that employers are looking for.  They’re also after responsibility, leadership, problem-solving skills, decisiveness and adaptability.  The truth is that many of the desired qualities in candidates are intangibles, unknown before introducing an employee to the working environment.  And the problem with these intangible skills is that they are notoriously difficult to teach.  Attributes like decisiveness, cultural awareness and emotional intelligence are hard to acquire; they are often innate talents, rather than learned ones.

In most instances, it is a challenge to develop soft skills through study alone – it is something that progresses over time, with experiences of both success and failure.  The Director of HR at the Lawn Tennis Association, Vicky Williams, argues: “Most things can be taught, other than passion – people are either born being passionate or they’re not.  That’s an innate skill. But if you take teamwork as a leadership competency, while somebody cannot go from completely unskilled to being A-starred, their leadership journey equips them to be better than when they started out.”

Value
There is no question that employers value soft skills.  In surveys, qualities like “team player” and “good communicator” are always high on the list.  However, soft skills are terribly difficult to teach directly.  The best thing employers can do is create an environment that facilitates the learning of soft skills, and giving their employees a firm grounding in what competency in these skills should look like.

Press Releases

Innovative Engineers Win Top Level Business Mentors

We are delighted to announce the winners of our Mentor30Engineers Competition.   To mark the 30th anniversary of the Sainsbury Management Fellows Scholarship scheme, we launched Mentor30Engineers to give engineers the opportunity to be mentored by a Sainsbury Management Fellow (SMF) for up to 30 hours over 3 years of their university study or early career.

We challenged student and qualified engineers to create brand new ideas to solve some of society’s toughest problems across five areas – the environment, healthcare, social care, financial planning and corporate taxation.  This was a no-holds-barred competition – there were no constraints on entrants’ thinking; we were seeking bold, imaginative ideas.

We were not disappointed – the judges were impressed with the blue sky thinking of 14 candidates who have all be awarded 30 hours of mentoring from a Sainsbury Management Fellow (SMFs).  SMFs are professional engineers and highly-experienced business leaders who are passionate about mentoring young engineers to help them fulfil their career ambitions and to go on to develop solutions to challenging problems.

Here, we showcase the winners: five graduate engineers from the Universities of Sheffield, Southampton, Nottingham and Bath, and nine undergraduate engineers from Imperial College London and the Universities of Loughborough, Warwick, Bristol and Durham.

Winner Course/Job Title University/Company
Fejiro Amam Mechanical Engineering Loughborough
Vivek Babu MEng, Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Warwick
Leah Edwards MEng, Mechanical Engineering Loughborough
Daniella Franklin MEng, Product Design Engineering Loughborough
Alberto Garcia Matachana MEng, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Imperial College
Adam Honnywill Engineering Design with Study in Industry Bristol
Ben Kelley Tunnel Engineer Ove Arup & Partners
Flavia Villarroel MSc in Sustainable Energy and Entrepreneurship Nottingham
Areeb Siddiqi PhD in Chemical Engineering Bath
Francesco Zeneli Engineering Design Bristol
Alan Middup International Graduate Trainee Halma plc
Matt Parkes Mechanical Engineering Loughborough
James Rogers Stress Engineer Rolls Royce

A summary of each winner’s essay is featured below, with the full essays being available as PDF downloads.

Fejiro Amam is a first-year BEng Mechanical Engineering (Hons) student at Loughborough University. He hopes to use the mentorship with SMF Conor Hanley, Director at Biancamed to gain as much insight as possible into the world of business and engineering and obtain the skills required to succeed in the industry.

 Essay Synopsis – Reducing hospital waiting times: Fejiro’s idea is implemented by having a central operating system which manages the affairs of the hospital and controls transmission of data to various personnel in the hospital. As soon as an injury occurs, data is collected by a paramedic or the person reporting the incident and used to build a patient profile which the operating system communicates to the relevant hospital departments and personnel depending on the severity and type of the injury, so that the hospital is ready to receive the patient even before his or her arrival; thereby significantly reducing the waiting time at the hospital. Read full essay

Vivek Suresh Babu is currently a second-year undergraduate at the University of Warwick studying Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering (predicted first class). He has secured a summer internship at Rolls-Royce in Civil Aerospace Manufacturing Engineering. He has also been nominated to study abroad in Singapore for the third year of his MEng degree. Vivek plans to use the mentoring opportunity with SMF Nikhil Amin, Head of Amazon Business UK, Marketplace, to acquire business acumen and develop leadership skills. He hopes to work in consulting in the future, with a focus on strategy and operations. 

Essay Synopsis –Food waste and supply-chain optimisation enhancing production efficiencies via agriculture 4.0 and digital farming: Vivek suggested that farmers in developing countries should make use of Agriculture 4.0 technologies; crop production efficiencies would increase, consequently decreasing the volume of waste at the start of the supply-chain. He devised a strategy where drones, smart sensors, AI and data analytics could be combined to create an automated supply-chain. Through digital farming, profits are maximised for both producers and retailers, while negative environmental effects (ie amount of fuel, water and pesticide used) are reduced. Read full essay

Leah Edwards is studying for a MEng Mechanical Engineering at Loughborough University, to graduate in 2019. She looks forward to working with her mentor SMF Simon Hughes, who is Chief Commercial Officer of Green Energy Options, and hopes to benefit from his guidance on professional development and advancement to help achieve her future business aspirations.

Essay Synopsis – Protecting the environment for the future: Leah proposes a carbon emissions labelling system for food packaging. She came up with the idea as she struggled to compare the impact of different foods on the environment, believing that access to the data would allow the consumer to make a more informed choice. In addition, she speculates that with veganism becoming more mainstream, people are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of their diet and that carbon emissions labelling would help the message reach a wider audience. It would also hold food companies accountable for their carbon footprint across the supply chain and encourage innovation in this area. Read full essay

Daniella Franklin is due to graduate from Loughborough University in the summer of 2018 with a degree in MEng Product Design Engineering, she is also a current participant in the International Engineering  UNITECH program. She intends to use her mentoring with SMF Busola Banjo, CEO* Program Associate at Siemens, to discover how she values herself as an engineer and to gain a better understanding of her future career opportunities. 

Essay Synopsis – Meeting the care needs of an ageing population:  Daniella’s proposal highlights a potential idea that could help society with the care needs of the older growing population. The idea focuses on finding a way to engage the older population of over 80s with the retired population aged between 65 – 79 years. The unclaimed capital that the retired population possess is being wasted, by developing a platform that helps connect the older generations over common interests will help claim some of the capital lost in the retired population. This is because their time will be spent helping the older population and themselves stay mentally healthier for longer through social interactions. The idea is to develop a national platform that the older generations can use safely on a local level. The platform uses a specially design algorithm to virtually connects people together, based on common interests or hobbies and their proximity to each other. This platform provides a way to easily gather data on the older population which can be used by the government to better understanding the needs of these populations. Read full essay

Alberto Garcia Matachana is a MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering undergraduate at Imperial College London. Alberto’s dream is to have his own company in the future. His technical knowledge is getting shaped step by step at Imperial, so he will take advantage of his mentoring with SMF Adam Bazire, Director at RAMSO to broaden his business discipline knowledge which will help him achieve his dream.

Essay synopsis – Tackling/reducing hospital waiting times: Alberto’s idea makes use of blockchain technology for reducing the NHS’s waiting times. To tackle the problem, each patient will have a persistent ID on the blockchain containing their personal information and medical record. On the other hand, the NHS would record the type and number of possible interventions within a specific period. Interestingly we can connect different blockchain networks to build a new one. This ultimate ledger would contain the surgery order (i.e. waiting list). This system, apart from offering security and privacy due to blockchain’s decentralised nature, it will also bring impartiality since anyone trying to corrupt the waiting list would need to do a considerable amount of triangulating of data.  Read full essay.

Adam Honnywill is an undergraduate at the University of Bristol, studying MEng Engineering Design with Study in Industry. He looks forward to his mentoring with SMF Simon Fowles, BT, to explore career options and gain insight on industry engineering practices.

Essay Synopsis – Heaven on earth – virtual retirement: Adam’s essay is an extrapolation of cutting-edge technology; a futuristic idea that the elderly can inhabit virtual realities to solve the issues associated with an ageing population. Whereas present-day solutions to these issues have heavy costs to society or provide inadequate care to the elderly, Adam outlines a radical solution that both cuts costs and improves the elderly’s care. Read full essay.

Ben Kelley graduated from the University of Southampton in 2015 with a first class honours degree in MEng Civil Engineering, and is now a tunnel engineer at Ove Arup & Partners in London. He intends to use his mentoring with  SMF Peter Young, a Director at Arup, to develop his engineering career and consider options for a business education to achieve his leadership potential.

Essay Synopsis – Ensuring major corporations pay their fair share of taxes: Ben’s proposes that we collect corporation tax on a firm’s UK profits, calculated by multiplying UK revenue (£) by global profitability (%). He identified that the growing digital economy makes assigning revenues to a geographic region very difficult and therefore proposed government licenses to mine data from UK citizens, in the same way as traditional mining of raw materials. In addition, he discussed if the data residency of servers could be used as a geographic basis for taxation, highlighting that this could create tax havens for data centres.  Read full essay.

Areeb Siddiqi graduated from the University of Bath in 2017 with a first class honours degree in MEng Chemical Engineering, and will be starting his PhD in Chemical Engineering in October at Bath.  He intends to use his mentoring with SMF Simon Bonini (Consultant at Muse, Stancil & Co), to discuss how to combine his technical skill-set with industrial awareness. 

Essay Synopsis – Protecting the environment – rising population creating an ever-growing need: Areeb’s idea to protect the environment from the ever-growing need of a rising population is to create a new production methodology for non-toxic and more environmentally-friendly surfactant chemicals, by pairing computational modelling with experimental validation via synthesis and toxicity analysis. He noted that differences in results between the simulations and laboratory testing is commonly due to limitations in the former.  He proposed that collaborative work between leading academics should be encouraged, where experimental validation from one department can feedback to a team working on the novel simulation methodology. The results would form a database relating surfactant structures with toxicity. Read full essay.

Francesco Zeneli began studying Engineering Design at the University of Bristol in 2017.   Francesco is looking forward to working with his mentor SMF Henning von Spreckelsen, Chief Executive at Shere Investment, to learn about entrepreneurship which he believes is one way to make a big impact on people’s lives for the better. He hopes to learn what it takes to create a successful start-up.

 Essay Synopsis – Tackling hospital waiting times: A way of solving the increase of waiting times in the NHS would be incorporating artificial intelligence and robots into hospitals. Artificial intelligence can analyse the patient’s medical records and alert doctors when a disease is in its initial stages, so it will be easier to treat therefore saving time. Robots can support doctors or nurses by treating patients with minor issues leaving staff to help people in need of more urgent attention.  Read full essay.

Alan Middup graduated from the University of Sheffield with a first class honours degree in MEng Mechanical Engineering and is now a graduate trainee at Halma plc, a FTSE100 technology company. He intends to use his mentoring with SMF Mike Astell, Director, Furness Petroleum to pursue chartership, discuss career options postgraduate scheme and identify potential opportunities in the energy industry.

Essay Synopsis – Value from waste – a data-driven solution: Alan’s proposal aims to tackle the global plastic waste problem by assigning value to waste via type and location data, and creating a digital marketplace to match demand with supply. Data relating to types and amounts of plastic would be stored in a product’s barcode and added to a consumer’s app-based account on purchase. This data would be available to recycling companies, giving them visibility of their entire waste supply chain and facilitating higher value reuse and recycling. Consumers would be incentivised via the app to separate waste types and reduce their packaging consumption, thus creating a value chain, driving a circular economic solution. Read full essay.

Matt Parkes is a Mechanical Engineering student returning to university after a placement year at TTP in Cambridge. He is expecting to be graduating from Loughborough University in 2020 with a MEng. He is focused on finding positions in his early career in which he adds real value and working with his mentor SMF Simon Bolton, CEO at Waterlogic International, to develop and prepare himself for career progression into business roles within STEM.

Essay Synopsis – Protecting the environment for the future -perched plastic aquifers:  Matt’s idea to optimise monsoon rains in arid areas of developing countries is based on using the waste of that region to construct a homegrown solution to water shortage. An impermeable waste plastic composite would be used to line a carefully positioned hole, creating a seasonally replenishing man-made ‘perched’ aquifer that supports a community’s water needs. The aquifers boast the potential to have significantly higher water quality than surface water sources. He identified northern China as an area in which these aquifers could prevent the use of heavily polluted water sources and save lives. Read full essay.

Flavia Villarroel graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2017 with a distinction in MSc Sustainable Energy and Entrepreneurship. She also attained a BSc Civil Engineering (2006) and an MSc Geotechnical Engineering (2009), both from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is currently establishing a startup in the Urban Farming Sector, Super Health Foods Ltd, to gain more experience in the technologies and make the device viable in a near future. Seeking to take her passion into reality, she is hoping the mentorship with SMF Tom Delay, CEO at the Carbon Trust can help her overcome the challenges of launching a company that focuses on sustainable ways of producing food.

Essay Synopsis – Protecting the environment for the future: Flavia’s proposal is to develop an affordable, standalone, family-sized device for fresh food production. The equipment would be able to sustainably produce fish, mushrooms and vegetables without any outside matters, anywhere in the world. This system would combine aquaponics, for vegetable growth and fish culture, and a compartment for mushrooms growth, providing important nutritional elements. The system would be fully sustainable via artificial lighting and basic sensors, powered by photovoltaic panels and battery storage. This solution would decentralize food production, allowing more families to have access to good quality food, whilst reducing the reliance on transport and packaging. Read full essay.

James Rogers graduated from Loughborough University in 2016 with a MEng in Mechanical Engineering. He is now a stress engineer at Rolls-Royce Submarines in Derby. He intends to use his mentoring with SMF Rob Gill, EAME Business Development at Advisian Worley Parsons, to develop his engineering career and consider options for his future education as well while growing his leadership potential.

Essay Synopsis: How government/regulators can meet their obligation to educate the public on financial management so that members of the public budget for their needs over their lifetime: James’ proposal to ensure that people budget for the entirety of their lives is to use artificial intelligence (AI) designed to help a person reach their long-term financial goals (house deposits, retirement funds etc).  The AI would analyse the person’s current position and find a route to achieving the goals set through habit creation by making adjustments to a person’s environment through tools such as social media. The challenge to this is not just the technical challenge of making a system that is effective, but the ethics. Having AI form and mould habits into a population may go against some of the values held dear, such as free will. Read full essay.

Eight other Mentor30Engineers winners attended the SMF Annual Dinner.  They are pictured with SMF President David Falzani MBE.

Press Releases

SMF Appointed to the Small Business Charter Management Board

 

We are delighted to announce that SMF Henning von Spreckelsen has joined the Small Business Charter Management Board.

Henning has worked in senior management positions in companies large and small, with experience in chemicals, plastics and packaging as well as having founded several companies. He is currently an investor, adviser and NED to a number of companies, in industries from marine lighting to recycled plastic waste to foreign exchange to digital metadata and is a trustee of the Engineers in Business Fellowship.

This announcement first appeared on the Small Business Charter website. 

Press Releases

Kingston University Awards ‘Engineers in Business’ Prizes to Students with Very Bright Ideas

Bright Ideas Winner, Bettina Gardasz with Sainsbury Mangement Fellow Ian Peerless, one of the competition judges.

A household concept of opening doors with just a button; a wireless button that can be programmed to perform any computer keyboard command, a set of table legs that can be applied to any flat surface to make a table, and wireless turning indicators for bicycles, mobility scooters and pedal-powered rickshaws to improve the relationship with road users are the winners and runners-up in the Engineers in Business category of Bright Ideas – a Dragons Den-style competition run by Kingston University.

This year, 650 participants applied and 120 students were selected to go forward to the grand final including the competitors for the Engineers in Business prize.  Forty-three judges and business experts heard a wide variety of creative pitches from students as they competed for up to £1,000 each to help them turn their innovative concepts into a business reality.

The Engineers in Business prizes, sponsored by  Sainsbury Management Fellows, included a prize of £1,000 towards developing an idea as well as additional training, networking and prototyping for the winner, with runners-up receiving £250.

Engineers in Business First Prize Winners

The Future is an Open Door

Bettina Gardasz, a second year BSc Business Management, presented the Future is an open door – a unique idea for opening doors with only one button, a concept aimed at people with disabilities.

During her research, Bettina learned that there are over 1.2 million wheelchair users in the UK and this number is rising every year.Wheelchair users face great challenges with mobility within their homes because the widths of wheelchairs tend to be wider than standard doorways.  Because of this, people have to make adaptations to their homes to facilitate a wider passage.  As a result, many households do not have physical interior doors. It is difficult for a disabled person to open and close a standard manual door. The lack of privacy can be emotionally daunting, especially if more than one person lives in the same property.

Bettina’s solution to this problem is a sliding interior electronic door and can be operated with only a button (sketch 1).  The sliding door would be installed with special mechanics which can be easily controlled remotely.  The door would automatically open and close with one click.

There are a few remote control concepts (see sketch 2) that would help users to easily operate doors.  A simple remote control[1], a bracelet remote control[2], a device which can be embedded into the wheelchair[3] and a wall mounted button[4] similar to a light switch.  In addition, the door could also be equipped with a motion sensor for much easier entry.

Bettina takes up her story, “During the competition, I received valuable feedback from the mentors and the judges.  I learnt how to clearly identify the main beneficiaries of the product and develop my business model using the Business Model Canvas.

“The judges suggested building a prototype of the product.   I would like to build my team with dedicated, bright people and find professionals who can help me with this project.  My mentors also advised me to build a brand and image which represents the business and its value proposition.  I will be working on both these recommendations over the next few months.

“My aim is to commercialise the sliding door, as I strongly believe that it would help thousands of people with disabilities that are challenged by building structures on a daily basis.  Although the start-up costs for these kinds of projects can be high, I am looking for opportunities which will help me fund my business idea and turn it into a real enterprise.  I believe in corporate social responsibility and I see it as a great opportunity for my business to put this into practice. I believe that the “Future is an open door” and we can all enter in with a little faith and courage!”

The StiKEY Solution
Judge Malcolm Paul, Kingston Alumni, Chartered Accountant and a member of the Kingston Enterprise Circle with members of the StiKEY team –  Gabriel Dransfield and Samuel Eady, Department of Aerospace and Aircraft Engineering.

Another first prize winner was the StiKEY team.  Aerospace engineering students Gabriel Dransfield, Sam Eady, James Richardson and Joe Doyle created StiKEY – a small wireless button that can be programmed to perform any computer keyboard command and can stick to any surface.  Gabriel, a third-year aerospace engineering, astronautics and space technology student, explained how the whole experience of Bright Ideas has improved their entrepreneurial skills and understanding of business.

“I had the idea for StiKEY when I realised how inconvenient it was to pause Netflix,” he said. “The University, through its Enterprise team, has offered us great opportunities to refine presentation techniques, improve our understanding of business planning and network with successful entrepreneurs to gain further contacts and guidance.

“We would like to use the prize to develop our business plan further and continue using the expert knowledge that Enterprise provides us with to move forward and get the business off the ground.”

The Bright Ideas Runners-up of the  Engineering in Business Prize:

SMF Ian Peerless, a judge in the competition with the PIKS team members who designed a set of table legs that can be applied to any flat surface to make a table: Charlie Jeffries, 3rd-year graphic design undergraduate, Jay Daniells, Ieuan Lewis and Harry Hobbs.
Runners-up, the WIU, team members who developed the idea of wireless turning indicators for bicycles, mobility scooters and pedal-powered rickshaws to improve the relationship with the road users: Arturas Gulevskis, (Sec Research Chemical, Process & Energy Engineering) and 
Julia Kurola (MSc Aerospace Engineering).
Enterprising Kingston University

Kingston University applied to run the Engineers in Business Competition in 2017, allowing the Enterprise Education team to broaden the Bright Ideas competition and devote prizes to engineering students and engineer-led ideas.

Head of Enterprise Education at Kingston University Dr Martha Mador, “Our students never fail to exceed expectations with their entrepreneurial spirit and desire to create and innovate.

“Everybody who entered this year should be really proud of their efforts and we hope they will continue to develop their ideas and dreams and see where it can take them. Here at Kingston University, we support all our students who want to create or develop a business model around an idea through mentoring, coaching, and creating networking and funding opportunities. Bright Ideas is a fantastic competition that incorporates all of these aspects of our work.”

Engineers in Business – Open to Universities and Further Education Institutions.

The Engineers in Business competition was created to increase the level of participation in business courses and business competitions by engineering undergraduates and graduates, giving them the opportunity gain more commercial education.

The Engineers in Business competition focuses on business innovation and works with universities and FE institutions that have existing competitions or elective modules for engineering students.    The competition offers each HEI/FEI a £3,000 prize fund, mentoring and promotional support.  Visit this page for further information on Engineers in Business.

SMF would like to thank Kingston University for original text featured in this article.

Press Releases

SMF MBA Scholarship Rises to £50,000 for Awardees

The Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarship scheme rises to £500,000 per annum to encourage more diverse applications and to offset the cost of studying for an MBA.

To inspire more graduates to acquire business education and to offset the rising cost of attending business school, the Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) MBA scholarship funding is being boosted by 67%, rising to £500,000 per annum.  Each year 10 successful graduates will be awarded £50,000 each towards MBA study at one of 14 international business schools, including Harvard, Stanford, LBS and INSEAD.

Along with the increase in funds is an expansion of who can apply for a scholarship.   Historically, the SMF scholarship was exclusively for engineers; now the eligibility criteria embrace engineering and technology professionals whose first degree is in allied technology and science disciplines such as physics and computer sciences.

Lord Sainsbury said, “Sainsbury Management Fellows have contributed to the growth of the UK and world economy, across all economic sectors.  Since the scheme began in 1987, over 275 new businesses have been founded and Sainsbury Management Fellows have generated £4.5 billion worth of economic wealth and have created 18,000 jobs.

“I am pleased that my Gatsby Foundation continues to support the Sainsbury Management Fellows’ Scholarship scheme.  I hope that, by increasing the amount of the scholarship, we will encourage and enable even more people – from a wide range of backgrounds – to apply for the award in future.”

Rising costs of MBAs: Over the last six years, average business school fees have increased by 19% in Euros and 31% in US Dollars.[1]  An MBA galvanises career prospects and income but studying for an MBA at a top international school is a big financial commitment given the fees, living costs and loss of salary for up to two years of studying.

SMF Taha Dar, a recent scholarship awardee who is studying at London Business School and a recent winner in the Great British Entrepreneur Challenge for co-founding SearchSmartly said: “My objective when choosing to pursue an MBA was to arm myself with the skills and experience that could allow me to one day pursue my own business.  The SMF scholarship has played a key role in this journey, and I know it will continue to do so.

“Giving up my job to study for the MBA was a big decision.  The scholarship has significantly mitigated the costs and risks associated with the change in career direction.  Future applicants will benefit even more now that the individual scholarship is £50,000.”

 

Applications for a Sainsbury Mangement Fellows Scholarship should be made via the Royal Academy of Engineering’ website.

[1] Analysis conducted by Engineers in Business Fellowship which runs the Sainsbury Management Fellows Scholarship

 

case studies

Three lessons I learnt while founding a startup – SMF Taha Dar


SearchSmartly founders Taha Dar (left) and Gil Razafinarivo

For many years, I kept telling myself that I would, one day, start an innovative business. I have always been passionate about using data to solve problems and improve human experiences. I had developed a technical skillset as an engineer at Red Bull Racing, a Formula 1 team. Yet the reasons that stopped me from taking the leap into entrepreneurship are probably familiar to any budding entrepreneur: Are my ideas good enough? Do I have the skills needed to succeed? Where do I even begin?

Finding the answers to these questions isn’t easy, but here are some of the lessons that I learnt on my personal journey.

Share your vision…
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve met budding startup founders who are protective about their idea and don’t want others to learn about the ‘next big thing’ that they’re working on. Except in certain rare circumstances, I think that this is a mistake. An idea’s value lies in its execution, and not in the concept itself. By exposing your idea to feedback, you maximise your chances of learning from potential customers, meeting potential mentors, and finding others that are equally passionate about your problem set. Starting a business as a solo founder is incredibly difficult, and one of the most fundament challenges a startup faces is that of building the right team. Only by meeting others who share your vision can you maximise your chances of finding the right people to work with.

I told everyone that I met during the early days of my MBA about my idea for the future of property search, and that’s how I met Gil Razafinarivo, my co-founder at SearchSmartly. He had just been through a six-week ordeal in finding a flat for his family, and by sharing my vision I learnt that he was as determined to change the property search experience as I was. He brought an extensive background in technology sales – something I had no experience of and a skillset that would be critical for the B2B business that I was looking to build. It was a great match.

…Because it will be wrong anyway
To paraphrase a famous piece of military wisdom, “no startup idea survives first contact with the market.” Entrepreneurs often have elaborate plans for bringing their idea to market, ranging from a fully-baked user interface to a particular market niche that will fall in love with the product. These plans invariably fail in their original guise, as the market is always more complicated than you think. Investors know this too, and they aren’t worried. It’s often said that early-stage investors aren’t really backing your idea at all; they’re betting on you being able to test your hypotheses with potential customers, learn from feedback, iterate on the product, and pivot your business in a new direction if needed.

My co-founder and I made some large changes in our business model very early. During our time in the London Business School’s Launchpad pre-accelerator, we pitched our idea in front of customers, market experts, and potential investors. The feedback we got from these individuals made us quickly realise that our initial, consumer-facing (B2C) business model would not be sustainable against the duopoly of Zoopla and Rightmove. Following this insight, we pivoted to a business-facing (B2B) model with the view of selling our technology direct to estate agents.

Take the first step today
I felt deeply uncomfortable taking the leap – it’s human nature to fear change after all. I had a technical skillset, but I utterly lacked the business education that I felt I required to get my idea off the ground. I knew programming, but I didn’t know much about web design. My first step was to teach myself HTML, CSS, and Javascript, the building blocks of any basic website. Using great tools online such as CodeCademy, I was able to get started. Yet I didn’t feel that this was sufficient. I ultimately decided to pursue an MBA to develop the business education that I lacked – in areas such as finance and marketing – greatly aided by my MBA scholarship from the Sainsbury Management Fellows.

The most important lesson of all is to get started today. In hindsight, much of what has been most relevant to my business was learnt from creating our first prototype and sharing it with potential users and pitching to investors. Speak to your users. Write the first line of code. Start sketching out your product. Draft the first pitch deck. Get out there!

About Taha and SearchSmartly
Taha is a Sainsbury Management Fellows Scholarship winner.  He is also the co-founder of SearchSmartly, a software-as-a-service startup making property search more efficient for estate agents and their clients. The team won the London Business School Launchpad 2017 demo day and is a winner in the Great British Entrepreneur Challenge. SearchSmartly is currently looking for a talented software developer to join its team and for contacts in the estate agency industry.   To find out more, contact the team at taha@searchsmartly.co.

Are you a young engineer interested in studying for an MBA?  Visit this page to learn about applying for the Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarship.

Press Releases

RAEng Launches This Is Engineering

The new This is Engineering campaign is designed to reshape the perception of engineering, giving more young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to explore how they could follow what they love into a varied and fulfilling engineering career.

Engineering is at the cutting edge: from robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, to mobile phones, medical technology, advanced sports equipment and driverless cars, engineering is shaping the future all around us.

Engineering is for everyone: whatever your background and whatever you love – whether it’s fashion, film, sport, music or technology.