Press release
Thursday 2 July 2015
UK’S MOST ENTREPRENEURIAL STUDENTS ANNOUNCED
· Six student entrepreneur winners unveiled
· Mediwikis from Newcastle University wins top £20,000 prize
· One in four students start an entrepreneurial venture whilst at university
· Santander Universities announces 2,000 international mobility grants, 2,000 internships, 500 work placements and a new Digital Fund
· Event attended by 48 University VCs, Principals and Presidents
Student entrepreneurs from across the UK were today recognised and rewarded at the fifth annual Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards ceremony at Santander UK’s headquarters in London.
The Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards support and encourage university students to pursue their business ideas by awarding the best with cash prizes. Research conducted by Santander Universities UK(1) revealed that almost a quarter (24 per cent) of university students run their own business or plan to start a business while at university.
Santander Universities also announced 2,000 mobility awards to allow both international and UK students to continue their studies and research abroad; 2,000 internships as part of its SME Internship Programme, and 500 SME work placements for undergraduates, to help students enter the job market and give SMEs access to young talent; and a new Digital Fund to provide £5,000 to each of its 78 university partners for digital activities aimed at the development of research or education.
The six winning entries were selected from a shortlist of 10 entrepreneurial projects by a panel of judges representing several UK universities, business schools and Santander. Each of the six have won cash prizes ranging from £1,000 to £20,000.
The undergraduate winners were:
First prize: PickProtection from the University of Strathclyde
Second prize: Roomshake from the University of Lancaster
Third prize: BeautyFind from Queen’s University Belfast
The postgraduate winners were:
First prize: Mediwikis from Newcastle University
Second prize: WingLights from City University London
Third prize: @Shrimpingit from the University of Lancaster
During the event, which hosted 48 VCs, Principles and Presidents from Universities and Colleges across the country, Nathan Bostock, Chief Executive Officer at Santander UK stressed the importance of supporting Higher Education: “There is no better way to invest in society than through education. Since 2007, Santander Universities has invested £40 million in the UK and this is expected to exceed £60 million by the end of 2016.
“The UK needs new ideas, state of the art products and innovative companies, and it’s impressive to see so many students demonstrating a great deal of skill and initiative. The UK has one of the best higher education systems in the world and is the perfect breeding ground for entrepreneurs. At Santander we want to reward and encourage students to dare to invent, innovate, create, and be entrepreneurial.”
Stuart Maitland, 22 years old from Whitley Bay and Co-founder of Mediwikis commented: “We are extremely happy to win these awards as it enables us to enter a new phase of growth with the project. It will also allow us to reach out to more and more campuses across the UK and help more medical students to build their own learning communities on campus.”
“Lots of developing countries completely lack eLearning resources.They have textbooks, but the textbooks are slow to get into the country. There’s no way for students to share the resources that are relevant to them and that can make them the best practitioners that they can be. We provide Mediwikis completely free in these countries, and we started by setting up in Rwanda and Zambia.”
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Notes to Editors
1) Research conducted by YouthSight, 24th – 26th June 2014 amongst a UK representative sample of 2,000 full time undergraduate students.
About The Winners
Pick Protection (University of Strathclyde)
A revolutionary wearable personal attack alarm – the Personal Guardian.
Roomshake (University of Lancaster)
A market leading platform for young professionals to find flatmates, network and find quality accommodation.
BeautyFind (Queen’s University Belfast)
BeautyFind is a new business offering an online appointment finder for health and beauty services, existing both as a website and an app available for free download.
Mediwikis (Newcastle University)
Mediwikis is an innovative start-up which aims to improve the quality of medical education through fostering rich and original collaborations.
WingLights (City University London)
Directional indicators for bicycles that fit on the end of straight handlebars, with the same function as indicators on cars and motorcycles.
@ShrimpingIt (University of Lancaster)
@ShrimpingIt offers open programmable electronics for UK educators.
About Us
Santander Universities
Since 1997 Santander has signed over 1,200 collaboration agreements with universities and higher education institutions in 20 countries.The agreements focus on promoting international exchange, entrepreneurial activities and the mobility of students and researchers within the network, as well as internships in SMEs for students. For the past 18 years, Santander Universities has been the focus of the Bank's social action with an investment of more than 1.2 billion euros in different initiatives and university projects. In the UK, 78 universities partner with Santander and in 2014 alone the bank funded over 2,400 scholarships and mobility awards. In addition, the Bank has close to 60 university branches in UK campuses. Further information:www.santander.com/universities
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. It has brought real competition to the UK, through its 1|2|3 products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. As at 31 December 2014, Santander UK was the most switched to bank, attracting 1 in 4 new retail customers. The bank serves more than 14 million active customers with c. 20,000 employees and operates through 921 branches and 66 regional Corporate Business Centres. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.
About Us
Banco Santander (SAN.MC, STD.N, BNC.LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, based in Spain, with a meaningful market share in 10 core countries in Europe and the Americas. Santander is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization and among the top 12 banks on a global basis. Founded in 1857, Santander had EUR 1.43 trillion in managed funds, 12,950 branches and 185,400 employees at the close of 2014. In 2014 Santander made an attributable profit of EUR 5,816 million, 39% more than the previous year.
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