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.”