Thirty engineering students and graduates could win a business leader as a mentor by developing a stand-out idea to solve some of the toughest problems in society. Thirty business leaders have volunteered to become mentors in the biggest mentoring competition for young engineers. This includes leaders from the Carbon Trust; Amazon; INSEAD; Laing O’Rourke, Honeywell Aerospace and RICS.

Engineering students and graduates can compete for a business mentor by entering Mentor30Engineers which is designed to inspire a passion for innovation.

Mentor30Engineers has been set up by Engineers in Business Fellowship, the charity that enables engineers to augment their engineering qualifications and experience with essential business skills. Engineers in Business Fellowship runs the Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarship and annually awards £500,000 in scholarships to study for an MBA at the top international business schools.

 SMF President David Falzani MBE said: “Some of the most important issues we face are not just technical challenges, but ones that require the ability to link technologies to an understanding of the market mechanism, business skills and entrepreneurial commercial thinking. Mentor30Engineers gives participants a chance to stretch their fertile minds and create solutions to big challenges in society.”
 

Entering Mentor30Engineers

The competition is open to UK-based students and graduates from any engineering discipline and undergrads can be at any stage in their degree course.

Entrants select a problem from five topics – NHS, Environment, Social Care, Finance and Corporate Tax – develop and then describe their innovation in an essay. The entry deadline is 28 February 2018.

The judges are looking for originality, feasibility of the ideas and evidence of engineering skills in the ideas. Entrants with the best ideas will win a Sainsbury Management Fellow (SMF) as a mentor.  The mentor will provide 30 hours of mentoring, supporting students throughout their degree studies or through the early stages of their career.

 

The Judges

The judging panel comprises Sainsbury Management Fellows including the president, David Falzani MBE, CEO of Polaris Associates and an honorary professor at Nottingham University Business School; James Raby, SMF Treasurer and a venture capitalist; Cathy Breeze, Director of Communications at SMF and entrepreneur Dr Robin Jones a partner at Endeavit.

Completing the judging panel is Chris Earnshaw OBE FREng, Chairman of the RAEng Steering Committee for SMF who said, “The Mentor30Engineers initiative provides access to an amazing range of expertise and experience from people who have themselves been successful in business. It is also a great example of how those who have benefitted from SMF Awards are able to widen the impact of the scheme by reaching out to the next generation of engineering leaders who have a passion to address some of the major challenges facing society today”.

This competition is now closed.

Engineers in Business Fellowship, which awards the Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarships, is delighted to announce that its president, David Falzani, has been appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for 2017.

David Falzani is a beneficiary of the Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) MBA scholarship which supports engineers in gaining business skills from top international business schools so that they can use their engineering and business skills to lead blue-chip companies and create innovative businesses.

Falzani heads a network of SMFs who, for example, have founded 275 thriving companies, and 153 SMFs have founded businesses valued at £4.6 billion and created 18,000 jobs.

As CEO of Polaris London, Falzani manages a consultancy that steers young businesses through key growth phases.  A serial entrepreneur, he founded start-up businesses in the UK, Italy and USA, raising over £5 million from venture capitalists and achieving trade sales.

Falzani has led Sainsbury Management Fellows for seven years and during his presidency has worked in close collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering to advance the education and training of engineers, inspiring them to develop their skills in innovation, management and governance so that they too can play a part in expanding the UK economy.

Falzani’s commitment to encouraging engineers to learn business skills led to his appointment as honorary professor at the University of Nottingham’s Business School where he has taught entrepreneurship for over five years. This association led to the creation of the SMF Engineers in Business competition which gives undergraduates hands-on experience of innovation and business practice. The competition challenges engineering students to create a novel product concept that meets a need in society and that demonstrates the use of engineering skills in the creative process. The competition is being extended to three more universities in 2017, and six more in 2018.

Falzani’s leadership has increased the power and effectiveness of the Sainsbury Management Fellows network. Today more than 260 Fellows mentor young engineers, helping them with career or entrepreneurial aspirations. He also helped SMF become a registered charity – Engineers in Business Fellowship – and the fundraising committee has already raised over £2 million to finance future MBA scholarships.

Visit our scholarship page to learn more about the MBA awards.

 

More than 300 hundred engineering students can now compete for a Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) Engineers in Business prize following its expansion from one to four universities.   Engineers in Business is a business innovation competition aimed specifically at engineering undergraduates.

Initially piloted by The Ingenuity Lab, part of Nottingham University Business School (NUBS), Engineers in Business will again be run by NUBS and for the first time by Kingston University, the University of Bristol and City, University of London.   Following their successful applications, the universities are integrating the Engineers in Business prize within their existing business competitions to inspire more engineers to get involved in creating exciting new businesses that solve social problems.

University of Nottingham
The Engineers in Business cash and mentoring prize will be integrated into the University of Nottingham’s tri-campus entrepreneurship competition Ingenuity18, one of the biggest entrepreneurship competitions in the UK.  Twenty shortlisted teams will attend three days of pitching to find winners who will share a £100,000 prize fund.

 Steven Chapman, Head of the Ingenuity Lab at the University of Nottingham said “Ingenuity18 is a journey of exploration, re-engagement with the problems facing contemporary society, and a chance to discover disruptive and innovative solutions to how we address them.  It is built upon three pillars: inspiration, development, and competition, and is open to all students, alumni, and early-stage researchers, as well as staff.”

City, University of London
City, University of London is launching MakerSpark for engineering students.  MakerSpark is part of the university’s annual CitySpark business innovation competition which encourages students and recent alumni to start a business and supports them in the process of developing their ideas into successful enterprises.   In the first term, engineering students who compete in MakerSpark can win one of three Engineers in Business awards of £1,000 each and gain the support and access needed to develop and launch a business idea. Further prizes of up to £5,000 are available in the second term of competition.   

Marius Stancu, Enterprise Education Projects Officer at City, University of London commented, “CitySpark has a great record of attracting students from the School of Mathematical & Computer Sciences and Engineering. The exclusive Engineers in Business prize will encourage even more engineering students to get involved and for us to fund more successful start-ups.”

University of Bristol
Engineers in Business becomes an integral part of the New Enterprise Competition, the University of Bristol’s flagship business idea challenge, which awards over £35,000 in prizes and support to competitors which includes students, recent graduates and staff who pitch the most original ideas for a self-sustaining business. 

Neil Coles, Assistant Director, Careers Service at the University of Bristol said, “The Engineers in Business prize will enable us to engage more engineers in the New Enterprise Competition.  The prize will be divided across each of the three stages of the competition so that we are rewarding engineers at all stages.” 

Kingston University
Kingston University’s Bright Ideas Competition inspires students to develop innovative business ideas, with 10 winners receiving either £250 or £1,000 cash prizes. The Engineers in Business prize money of £3,000 will sponsor two £1,000 prizes and two £250 prizes for engineering entries, with an over-arching prize for the best engineering idea overall.  Kingston University will be encouraging civil engineering, mechanical engineering and foundation year students to compete.

Dr Martha Mador, Head of Enterprise Education at Kingston University said: “We are committed to helping students develop their entrepreneurial capabilities. Directly targeted prizes are an excellent way to encourage students to recognise the importance of wider business skills to the profession, and to their careers.  We are keen to develop their confidence for their careers which is particularly important to a university committed to widening participation.”

Mission of engineers in business competition
David Falzani, President of Engineers in Business Fellowship (EIBF), which awards the Sainsbury Management Fellows MBA scholarships to engineers said, “Supporting university business competitions is part of our commitment to develop the innovation, business and marketing skills of engineers. The competitions will increase awareness of the Engineers in Business competition, reaching over 8,000 students, graduates and lecturers at the four universities.  The competitions increase the number of engineers participating in entrepreneurialism at an early stage, broadening their career horizons and give them skills that employers’ value in engineers. Ultimately we see the Engineers in Business competition running in universities throughout the UK and, over the next three years, we will be expanding it to at least a further six universities.”

Learn more about Engineers in Business and how to apply to run the competition at your university.

SMF President and business consultant, David Falzani has been selected for the second year running to coach participants in Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) programme run by the Royal Academy of Engineering in partnership with the Newton Fund. The Newton Fund is part of the UK’s official overseas development assistance which aims to develop international science and innovation partnerships that promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries.

The primary objective of the LIF programme is to build the capacity of researchers within partner countries* of the Newton Fund, for entrepreneurship and commercialisation of their research. The programme brought a cohort of 15 researchers who have developed a business proposition for their innovation, to the UK to participate in a 10-day residential programme. This delivered highly focused entrepreneurship training and gave the researchers access to expert coaches who helped them to develop their business plans, all of which are based on their outstanding research.

David Falzani was delighted to be selected to take part in the 2016/17 LIF programme because it enabled him to draw on his experience and skills as a business consultant to early-stage companies, to help the researchers assigned to him. Also, as a seasoned lecturer in entrepreneurship – he has taught the subject at the University of Nottingham’s Business School for the last five years – he shared lessons and real-life case studies with the researchers on the commercialisation of business innovations.

David coached researchers working on a genomics product, a sleep monitoring system, express bone replacement and the regeneration of deactivated catalysts. He said, “It was an intense, exciting and rewarding two weeks during which I had the pleasure of working with very talented researchers. Their ideas are bringing real value within their sectors and benefits to society.”

David’s work with the researchers was tailored to each project, and covered wide-ranging topics, including helping them to identify markets and target products within international markets; exploring how to promote new products, advising on financial and cash strategies, and price negotiation theory; looking at how to engage with potential collaborators; sharing insights on investor networks and managing investors; as well as actually facilitating introductions to potential investors.

Turkey: Genomize SEQ Genetic Analysis Cloud Platform
A cloud-based genomics product that is enabling personalised genomics and preventive medicine. SEQ delivers a unique machine learning approach to eliminate 99% of false positives in genetic variant analysis. Due to its cloud-based nature, users can store and organise their genetics data in a secure data warehouse without the need to build the technical and personnel infrastructure for genome analysis.

The B2B model provides data genomic processing for Hospitals whilst the new B2C model has introduced a consumer brand resold via genetic diagnosis centres. Both models are producing revenue and are looking for scaling opportunities.

The platform allows couples, such as those that already have a child with a genetic disease, to check that a foetus is healthy via a non-invasive screening service. It also allows them to estimate the risk of genetically inherited diseases in their genome being passed on to their future children.

SEQ also opens the door to personalised treatment for patients with diseases such as cancer, and predictions to the response to certain types of drugs.

The number of hospital customers has increased from 12 to 28. SEQ is on track for sales of $300,000 this year and a 2017 sales target of $1.5m. They now estimate they have over 65% market share in Turkey, making it easier to acquire new customers as word and their reputation spreads.

Genomize won first prize in the 2016/17 LIF programme.

China:  SCR RegenTM
Fossil fuel plants are still common in many countries, including China. Chinese government rules are increasingly targeting nitrogen oxide (NOx) and other emissions, with recent regulation requiring all such power plants to install SCR catalyst systems to clean the flue gas. These SCR catalysts usually become inactive after three years of operation.

SCR RegenTM takes old deactivated catalysts and regenerates them back to virtually ‘as new’ condition. The regeneration process removes all the catalyst deactivation compounds and restores the catalyst activity back to the original OEM level.

Since it is based on recycling, this offers substantial economic advantages. For example, about a £1 million per year saving for an 800-megawatt power plant, as well as environmental benefits such as, typically, avoiding 500 tonnes of hazardous solid waste.

SCR RegenTM’s parent company, the Shenhua Group owns 78 power plants with a total of 6600 Megawatts electric capacity. However, there are also many more power plants in China and there is only one competitor able to provide a similar, but inferior, catalyst recycling solution.

Operationally, SCR RegenTM has successfully recycled catalysts during an extremely tight shutdown period for a power station, with formidable penalties for any late completion. It is focusing on licensing its now proven solution. SCR RegenTM already has six licensees so far with six SCR regeneration plants in China, covering about 60% of the Chinese market. The company is expecting sales to approach 12mRMB (over $£1.7m) in its first commercial year, which has exceeded all expectations.

The use of SCR catalysts has a profound effect on the level of pollutants and carbon emitted by fossil fuel-fired power stations. However, since the power stations are now required to fit such catalysts, the SCR regeneration project’s prime achievement has been in reducing the catalyst replacement cycle and achieving full performance recovery with recycled rather than new catalysts – something that was previously impossible – avoiding the frequent purchase of brand new catalysts.

Brazil: Lisane Valdo,  An Engineer with an MBA
Lisane Valdo has developed a watch-based wristband sensor and associated sleep monitoring system. The sleep and tiredness monitoring system has four potential large markets: weight loss, nutrition, industrial safety (process plant staff, and drivers/machine operators), and sports management.

The weight loss application has a large market and an important social aspect: there is a growing obesity epidemic threatening to overwhelm many healthcare systems in the next two decades. Well known as appetite factors, lack of sleep and poor sleep quality are amongst the key drivers for weight gain and difficulty in losing weight.

A trial is taking place with the largest hospital in South America, with 400 patients. Lisane is currently applying for phase 3 FAPESP funding and a significant new investor is being sought to develop the first of a number of sleep clinics. She is working on this with GOCIL, the biggest private security company in Brazil, with 23,000 employees.

Other opportunities being considered include a sensor to prevent cot death for premature babies and a bovine pregnancy monitor.

On completion of the residential course, the researchers returned to their respective countries and continue to push their innovations forward. However, the support did not stop there. As with all LIF programme coaches, David continued to provide long-distance mentoring for six months after the course. He concluded, “It’s wonderful to see the progress that is being made on all the projects, and I wish all the researchers great success as they achieve ‘firsts’, secure new contracts and expand into new geographical territories.”

If you are interested in becoming a teacher/coach on the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellows programme, visit the website for further information.

Sainsbury Management Fellows is the scholarship scheme of Engineers in Business Fellowship. If you are an engineer interested in studying for an MBA, visit this scholarship page.

* India, China, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Egypt, South Africa, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil.

The  SMF Hard Hat Index shows a 19.6% tumble in the use of hard hats in articles – the first fall in four years.

Hard Hats dominate the image of engineers says the Sainsbury Management Fellows Hard Hat Index which has tracked such images in 17 engineering publications over five years. In that time 1,181 images of hard hat-wearing engineers have appeared in advertisements and articles. Images that SMF believes damages the image of engineers by reinforcing stereotypes and giving a very narrow view of the profession.

But change is in the air. The SMF Hard Hat Index shows a 19.6% tumble in the use of hard hats in articles – the first fall in four years.

In the Index’s launch year (2012/13), there were just 67 hard hats in articles in the monitored publications, but this figure climbed every year until this present Index.

The 2016/17 Hard Hat Index recorded 127 hard hats in engineering articles compared to 158 in the previous year.

After years of seeing the figures yo-yo infinitesimally, there is a breakthrough as engineering magazines start to use more imaginative visuals to communicate more thoughtful images of engineering.

But the image portrayed in articles is only half the story. The opposite has happened to the number of hard hat images used in advertising. The latter has soared by over 30%, from 99 hard hat images in the 2015/16 Index to 129 in the current Index. This is the largest number of hard hats used in advertisements since the launch of the Hard Hat Index.

SMF President, David Falzani MBE said,“This hike could be due to an increase in the volume of ads, the study currently does not track this information, but will in the future.

“Another interpretation of the big difference between the editorial and advertising use of hard hats might be that publishers are embracing the idea of promoting more diversified images of engineers, whereas they do not have input into advertising content; companies control their advertising messages.

“Our sector needs to show diverse images and role models of engineers so that influencers, gatekeepers, and young people understand that we work across all industry sectors, in different environments and that engineering offers dynamic, creative and rewarding careers. The ‘no hard hats’ message is gaining momentum. In the last couple of years, high-profile figures in the industry have spoken about the proliferation of hard hats, and competitions are being run by institutions to raise awareness of the problem and to inspire the use of better images.”

What happens to the Hard Hat Index when the advertising and editorial results are combined?

Whilst it is important to applaud the reduction of hard hats in articles, adding the advertising figure tips the scale in the wrong direction. Combined 256 hard hats were published in the titles monitored. Just one hard hat image less than the 2015/2016 Index.

In our workshops with engineering undergraduates, there was a consensus that advertisers should stop using hard hats and other stereotypical images and replace them with inspirational photos that tell better stories about the opportunities in engineering.

Hard hat images influence people’s view of engineers. Use of the term ‘hard hat’ rose rapidly between 1960 and 2000 (source: Google’s N-gram) most likely due to a focus on health and safety. While hard hats are essential in some industries, their relentless use to portray all engineers is misleading.

When the SMF YouGov survey asked 2,000 people what items they thought engineers primarily wear on an average working day, the hard hat came top with 63% of the votes, whereas a business suit received 25% of votes. Asked where engineers predominantly work, building and construction sites come top (69% of votes), followed by industrial sites (66% of votes), while offices came fifth. Most people picture engineers working on building, industrial or manufacturing sites, yet the reality is that many thousands of engineers also work in other locations such as offices. The image portrayed influences people’s thinking so ridding the media of the ubiquitous hard hat will help to change perceptions.

Engineers in Business Fellowship is the latest organisation to join the University of Nottingham’s Ingenuity Business competition.

The Engineers in Business (EIB) competition run with Nottingham University Business School for the last three years inspired over 80 students to learn about and put into practice the entrepreneurship process.  The competition led to eight teams winning an EIB Award for developing a novel product concept, ranging from the Water Porter, a barrel that allows people in developing countries to transport large quantities of water from wells to their homes to the SenSei sensory glove designed to help blind people navigate safely around nearby objects/obstacles.

David Falzani, President of EIBF said, “We’ve been encouraged by the students’ passion for innovation and entrepreneurship and wish to give many more would-be entrepreneurs with an engineering qualification the chance to win an Engineers in Business award, so we rolled our £3,000 prize fund and mentorship by our Fellows into the University of Nottingham’s Ingenuity 17 competition.”

Ingenuity is the University of Nottingham’s (UoN) tri-campus international entrepreneurship competition.  It is open to all UoN undergraduates, postgraduates, alumni and early-stage researchers in the UK, Malaysia, and Ningbo.  It is now one of the biggest entrepreneurship competitions in the UK – 334 people competed in the 2017 event.  The appeal is obvious:  an opportunity to receive expert guidance from academics and entrepreneurs, a three-day conference to help entrants enhance their business plans and the chance to win a share of the £100,000 prize fund to support their business idea.

The winners of the Engineers in Business awards are:

First Prize of £1,500 and an SMF mentor was scooped up by UoN alumna Emma Hartley (Product Design graduate) who founded Pulse AED: Pulse is an automated external defibrillator that is easy to use, requires no training, is lightweight and affordable by everyone.

Second Prize of £1,000 was awarded to UoN Alumnus Dan Simmons (Electrical & Electronics Engineering graduate) who created Quensus which offers intelligent water management solutions using the internet to decrease water bills and prevent damages caused by leaks.  Amongst its many features, Quensus automatically detects water leaks, provides valuable insights into when and where water is used, diagnoses problems and automatically checks bills.

Third prize of £500 was won by the Bottle by Bottle team which created a sustainable solution to the housing crisis in Nepal. Bottle by Bottle is a social enterprise, which aims to provide safe and affordable housing to disadvantaged communities. Using a unique technique in which the bottles are filled with sand, tied together with string and then secured with mortar and wire, Bottle by Bottle has built all the components necessary for a safe and impressive plastic bottle home.

David Falzani concluded: “After three years’ running the Engineers in Business competition with Nottingham University Business School, making eight awards for inspiring product concepts, and seeing how much students benefitted from learning the ‘ingenuity process’, it was a logical next step to integrate our award into the Ingenuity17 competition.

“The scale and popularity of Ingenuity17 gave us an amazing opportunity to engage with a larger and diverse range of students who share a passion for entrepreneurship.  Our charity works to inspire and support young engineers who want to take on leadership and entrepreneurship roles, so Ingenuity17 is a good fit for the Engineers in Business award and we look forward to continuing our sponsorship in future years.”

Is there a better way for people in developing countries to transport water supplies long distance from a well to their homes?  How about an innovation that could help food and drink street vendors in Africa earn more money in a working day to better support themselves?  And back in the UK, can we improve communications between the hearing and deaf communities?

Three undergraduate teams (mixed teams including engineering students) at Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) have won a prestigious Engineers in Business Award for developing innovative product concepts that could solve these problems.  The winning teams share a £3,000 a prize pot, plus mentoring for the first-prize winner.

Sponsored by Engineers in Business Fellowship (awards MBA scholarships to young engineers), the competition is run in conjunction with NUBS’ Entrepreneurship & Business module.  Chris Mahon, Director, MSc Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management at NUBS said, “The E&B module and the Engineers in Business competition take students through the ‘ingenuity process’ – from identifying a problem that needs a novel solution and brainstorming ideas, to selecting a viable concept, research, intellectual property considerations, product development and marketing processes.  This methodology develops entrepreneurial thinking.”

The Winners:

The Water Porter team took first prize for a new multi-purpose barrel that would, as its primary function, transport large quantities of water more efficiently than current methods. The Water Porter team won £1,500 prize money and each person will be assigned a career mentor by Engineers in Business Fellowship.

Second prize was awarded to the SpeakEasy team for its tablet that converts speech to text and vice versa to assist communication between the hearing and the deaf. The SpeakEasy team won £1,000.

The Sol-Ice team took the third prize for a concept that will help food and drink street vendors in Africa beat the intense heat by making their goods less perishable, prolonging their trading hours and thus increasing their daily earnings. Sol-Ice won £500.

WINNING PROJECTS IN MORE DETAILS

First Prize: Water Porter – freeing people in developing countries from hours of arduous water collection

Imagine travelling 10-15 kilometres each day to collect water and carrying up to 15 kilos per trip.  According to Water Porter’s research,  in parts of Africa, women and children spend up to 8 hours per day travelling to wells to collect fresh water for the family.  Not only is this arduous work that can cause physical damage to the head and spine over the long term, but the time involved in this pursuit lessens women’s ability to participate in economic activity to earn wages and prevents children from attending school.

The Water Porter is a lightweight indented barrel that is designed to transport large volumes of water over long distances without the need to carry a heavy load on the head; instead, the barrel is pushed using a removable, extendable handle.  As well as reducing the physical burden, the ability to collect a larger volume of water per visit reduces the frequency of journeys to collect water, freeing up women to work outside the home and children to go to school.

Furthermore, Water Porter is multi-purpose – the indented cushioned side acts as a portable bed for a young child or a seat for resting during long journeys. The cushioned area provides for comfort but can be removed at the user’s discretion. Water Porter is fitted with a tap that delivers controlled water release, as well as a lid to dispense larger amounts of water as needed.

Speaking on behalf of the Water Porter team Fatin Zabidi Azhar said, “The barrel is a sustainable product that could have a life-changing impact in developing countries.  The product would be made from strong plastic so that it can sustain rough terrains, and the plastic can be recycled when ‘wear and tear’ occurs from long-term use.  We envisage the product being made locally to keep the cost low and to provide jobs.”

Second Prize: SpeakEasy – improving communication between the deaf and hearing 

The SpeakEasy team set out to create an affordable tablet that translates text into speech and vice versa, to enhance communication between deaf and hearing people.

The SpeakEasy tablet would act as a personal assistant, converting the user’s voice messages into text via voice recognition software and a finely tuned microphone, as well as converting text to audio so that people without a voice can be heard.  It could also be used by people with a speech condition to communicate more easily.

SpeakEasy incorporates a personal phrasebook and dictionary, as well as multi-lingual dictionary capability.  SpeakEasy is intended to work seamlessly offline as all the data would be stored internally and any new content would be updated over the internet.

Speaking about the competition and the ingenuity process, Freddy Heppell from the SpeakEasy team said, “We learned a range of new skills, in particular, the experience taught us the importance of working as a cohesive team in order to develop an idea, as well as communication skills to present our concept with conviction.”

Third Prize: Sol-Ice – top secret idea could keep street food cool
We have all seen images of enterprising street vendors in Africa selling their wares to passers-by in sweltering heat – often without a way of keeping their stock chilled.  This means vendors are forced to cut their working day short as demand tapers off as the goods are affected by the intense heat.

The Sol-Ice team has come up with a sustainable solution to the ‘overheated’ food and drink problem, one that they believe also has the potential to create local jobs and improve people’s quality of life.  The Sol-Ice team is convinced that it has hit upon something big so the product concept cannot be revealed until it is patent-protected!

Speaking for the team, Philip Cohen said, “We’re very excited by the potential of our innovation, it could make a big difference to people in Africa.  This means that the concept is under wraps for now.  Our team found the E&B experience extremely useful – the ingenuity process provides a guide to clear thinking.  We learned that in order to have good ideas, you must generate a huge amount and then sift down to the best.  Rather than a ‘light bulb moment’ or an innate skill, creativity is a long, thought out process that anyone can learn.”

David Falzani, Engineers in Business President and Honorary Professor in Sustainable Wealth Creation at NUBS said: “It’s exciting to see the winning teams aiming to solve social problems at home and abroad.  Some of the most important global challenges we face today are not just technical ones but require the ability to link technologies to an understanding of the market mechanism, business skills, and entrepreneurial commercial thinking. These challenges include delivering and growing secure and affordable supplies of clean water and of energy, to meet the needs and expectations of a fast-growing global population. The competition inspires students to think about big issues and to create potential solutions.”

Engineers in Business Fellowship is currently inviting invitations from other universities to run the Engineers in Business Competition.  For more information contact the SMF Office.

Eight young engineers who demonstrated leadership skills and the drive to reach senior management level early in their careers have been awarded a Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF) scholarship to study for an MBA degree. Each engineer receives £30,000, bringing this year’s scholarship awards to £240,000, and the total granted since the scheme was established to over £8.5 million.

SMF scholarship applicants make a detailed written submission and shortlisted candidates undergo a rigorous panel interview at the Royal Academy of Engineering which manages the application process.  This year’s winners are Bishrut Mukherjee, Taha Rahman Dar and Jonathan Dyson (LBS), Alessio Falcone (IESE), Animish Sivaramakrishnan (Wharton), Deviyani Misra-Godwin (Harvard), Samarth Sharma and Fani Pournara (INSEAD).

The scholarship helps engineers who have ambitions to move into business leadership roles to gain key business skills, such as strategy, finance, and marketing.   As with the existing 330 Fellows, the MBA will enable the new awardees to combine their business and engineering skills to drive innovation in blue-chip, start-up and not-for-profit enterprises.

Started by Lord Sainsbury nearly 30 years ago, the Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarship is increasing the quantity and quality of senior executives with engineering qualifications at the top of UK organisations.

SMF President, David Falzani said, “The UK engineering sector is vital to building the UK economy yet there is a large shortfall of engineers, with demand outstripping supply across all skill levels. The SMF scholarship is doing its part to address the problem.  SMFs have generated more than £4.5 billion for the global economy and created 18,000 jobs.  SMFs lead businesses in many industry sectors including technology, finance, luxury goods, transport, retail, healthcare, education, energy and the environment.

For more information on making a scholarship application, visit the Royal Academy of Engineering website.

Photo: NicoElNino