A team of Applied Computing students received the first Scottish entrepreneurial scholarship for undergraduates clinching £1,300 worth of funding and prize money to take their innovative idea to the next stage and hopefully into business in the University's own Serious Business competition.
Dynamo computing solutions - a team of three final year Applied Computing students - Stuart Anderson, Brian McNicoll and Stuart Reid provide software development, web management tools and wireless software. They will be given office space, for 4 months at the University's Springfield Incubator Unit where they will benefit from continuous one to one business development support from professionals to commercialise their IT solutions.
Ten prize winners also received cash awards for their innovative ideas. The top award of £400 will go to BIND for a customisable sketchbook for artists that allows a variety of different papers and mediums to be bound within it and tailored to suit the customer.
A team who have developed colourful woolly hats for kids with glow in the dark fibres will receive a runners up prize of £150 to take their idea forward. The prizes were presented by Professor Malcolm Horner, Deputy Principal and Director of the Centre for Enterprise Management.
The competition was established by the University for its burgeonging population of students who are seeking to commercialise their bright ideas. John Mackenzie, Commercialisation Facilitator, at Research and Innovation Services expressed his delight at the quantity but in particular the quality of response from students:
"Judges had to deliberate long and hard and decided to award 10 cash prizes totalling £2,200 which will go directly into the pockets of these enterprising students.
This is the first year of this competition and we have big plans and high hopes that it will become a flagship event at the University of Dundee.
It confirms that the University is becoming an increasingly entrepreneurial and attractive place for students to study, research and do business.
The Centre for Enterprise Management, part of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, who run the competition, is very grateful to Scottish Enterprise Tayside for its sponsorship of this event and equally grateful to its partners in the competition, the Young Entrepreneurs Society, who in its second year have been promoting the competition to its members.
Dynamo Computing Solutions are available to staff this summer to assist with IT solutions in research projects.
Contact: info@dynamocomputing.com or www.dynamocomputing.com