Photo opportunity 1.15pm, Thursday 12 December, River Room, Tower Building, University of Dundee.
Design students at the University of Dundee have come up with an idea for a new invention to help blind people convert supermarket prices with a hand held scanner to a braille print out. This new invention will assist blind people to read public signs where no braille provision is made.
The new bright idea is by a team of third year animation students calling themselves Project Mayhem. Mayhem is made up of Andrew Miller, John McGillivray, Janine Douglas and team leader Dave Usher.
The young entrepreneurs have won the prize for the best business idea in arts in the University of Dundee's Serious Business competition. The University of Dundee has been a hotbed of ideas over the last few weeks as 35 teams involving 140 students have been pitting their wits and testing their sense of commerce to come up with a business idea to outshine their fellow students.
Today, Deputy Principal and Director of the Centre for Enterprise Management, Malcolm Horner will present Project Mayhem with their winning prize of £250 and the top prize for best idea in technology to Biotab, a team who plan to identify novel targets for drug delivery. Four teams of runners up will receive £100 to take their ideas forward.
The entrants attended a series of workshops during tern on Unlocking creativity and business planning to help them shape and elaborate on their ideas. All entrants can now enter part 2 of the competition where they build a business plan around their idea. This will be judged in March when the best plans can win up to £1,000.
John Mackenzie, from Research and Innovation Services at the University welcomed such a large number of entrants: "The competition is a catalyst for student entrepreneurs and is further evidence that the University of Dundee is an innovative place for students and staff alike. The next stage of the competition will help entrants turn their ideas into business opportunities."
By Jenny Marra, Press Officer 01382 344910 j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk