May 2011 30

Asian student entrepreneurs dominate the final reckoning in a Coventry University business competition encouraging student entrepreneurship.

Business Weekly

Entrepreneurs’ Challenge 2011 Grand Finale
May 2011 16

Proudly presented by CUE.

Register at http://cuegrandfinale2011.eventbrite.com/

Date and Time: 18:00 - 22:00 Wednesday, 8 June, 2011

Location: Coventry Union, The Chamber

A showcase of the business ideas from this year’s finalists of the CUE entrepreneurs’ challenge. They will be pitching to a penal of angel investors, hoping to win the grand CUE prize of £5000 and maybe even the special Angel Prize!

  • “Dragon’s Den”-type pitching with Angel Investors
  • Finalists’ Poster Session
  • Drinks reception, Food and Entrepreneurs’ Networking

The finalists are:

Technology

Anharmonika: Sourav Ghosh, Ashley Butcher
e-Comm: Tongyun Li, Michael Crips, Richard Penty, Ian White
Spherico Biotechnology: Shah rukh Abbas, Faisal Khan, Habib Abdur-Rahman
Trainsense: He Yu, Ruiqi Chen, Sinha dhiraj

Social Enterprise

RISE: Baillie Aaron, Daniel Marshall
Craftslink: Rudradeb Mitra, Ali Marjowy, Steve Power
Elpida Coventry Health: Muntaqa Umar-sadiq, Lu Tan, Michael Freeman
Green Pace: Sargam Tyagi, Anuja Sinha
Khadija’s Business Park: Shah rukh Abbas, Faisal Khan, Habib Abdur-Rahman

Software and IT

Stella: Wenqi Chen
Qiqqa: James Jardine, Nicholas Smit, Elbert Marais, James Phillips
Labbridge: Min Hu, Peng Li, Ankur Mutreja

The competition is fierce and entertaining, and all you need to do is to come along and enjoy the night with a glass of champaign on the house!

Agenda

18:00 Arrival and Registration

18:30 Welcome from the President

18:35 Introduction to the Panel

18:50 CUE Finalists Pitches

19:40 CUE review and pitches from CUE competition entrants

20:00 Winners announced

20:30 Poster session, Food, Drinks, Cake and Live music

21:30 Close

This year’s angel investors:

Charles Cotton - Serial Entrepreneur and founder and Chairman of Coventry Phenomenon Ltd

Charles Cotton is an experienced director of public companies listed on the London, Nasdaq, Euronext Amsterdam, and Frankfurt stock exchanges and private companies in the USA and Europe.

During his career he has lived and worked in the UK, USA and Germany and has experience conducting business in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, North America and Africa. He has advised the UK government on the development of entrepreneurial businesses and the commercialization of science and technology. In addition, he is an adviser to and investor in venture capital firms, an angel investor and mentor.

He is a director of Solarflare, the semiconductor company; Veebeam, the consumer electronics company; and two other companies in California. His UK directorships include Coventry Phenomenon Ltd, semiconductor company XMOS and Coventry Enterprise Ltd the organization within the University of Coventry responsible for spin-outs, licensing and consulting activities.

Dr Jonathan Milner - Business angel and CEO of Abcam

Jonathan Milner is a highly experienced entrepreneur and business leader with a background in genetic research. He gained his doctorate in Molecular Genetics at Leicester University after graduating in Applied Biology at Bath University. He was a research fellow at Bath University and the University of Coventry in the laboratory of Professor Tony Kouzarides, studying genes and proteins associated with human cancers. Whilst working in research he identified the potential market opportunity in supplying high quality antibodies to support protein interaction studies. He founded Abcam, with David Cleevely and Professor Tony Kouzarides, in February 1998 as an internet-based business to supply a rapidly growing market. He is an active member of the Coventry, UK, business community and is chairman of Coventry Temperature Concepts Limited, a Coventry University Entrepreneurs (CUE) Entrepreneurs’ Challenge winning team, also a privately held medical device company developing a reliable system for ovulation monitoring.

Dr Andy Richards - Serial Biotech Entrepreneur and business angel

Dr Andy Richards is a serial Biotechnology entrepreneur and business angel. He is currently Chairman of Altacor, Novacta and Ixico and is a director of Vectura plc, Summit Corp plc, Theradeas, Cancer Research Technology (commercial arm of CR-UK) and Babraham Bioscience Technology.He is a Coventry graduate with a PhD in Chemistry who spent his early career with ICI (now AstraZeneca) and with PA Technology. He was a founder of Chiroscience and an executive director through to the sale to Celltech in 1999. Since that time he has been founding and investing in new Coventry based biotechnology companies including several of those listed above as well as Arakis, Geneservice, Coventry Biotechnology Ltd, Amedis Pharmaceuticals, Sirus Pharmaceuticals, Daniolabs and Pharmakodex, all of which were recently sold.He is a council member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), a founder member of the Coventry Angels, the founding Chairman of BIA Bioangels.

Ted Shelton (CEO, Open-First)

Ted Shelton, CEO, Open-First. Open-First is a consulting firm based in Palo Alto and London working with clients ranging such as Alcatel-Lucent, General Motors, and ThomsonReuters on innovation and market ecosystem projects. Ted has spent the past 20 years working in the high tech industry, as a software developer, in product development, marketing, and as a senior executive in both public and privately held companies. Previously Shelton served as the Chief Strategy Officer of Borland Software and Senior VP of Sales and Marketing for WhoWhere (acquired by Lycos in 1998) and several other software and Internet start-up companies.

May 2011 07

Twelve of the most innovative new technologies to emerge from Coventry University students this year go on parade in the Grand Finals on June 8.

Business Weekly