Congratulations on all who submitted entries to the £100 for 100 Words Competition!

Come to find out who are the winners of £100 prizes at the first ever Cofounder Speed Dating event on Wednesday, 16th November 2011.

While you are waiting, why not join us in the Enterprise Tuesday Discussion Group after attending the Enterprise Tuesday lecture series? Or go to events organised by our sister societies like CUTEC and Beyond Profit to learn more about technology and social enterprise start ups.

And get ready for the £1K Competition!

1. Sign up for our mailing list: https://lists.cam.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/soc-cue

2. Join the £100 competition to win £100 for 100-word summaries of your ideas. Deadline 23:59, Tues 25th Oct. https://www.cue.org.uk/100-for-100-word-submission/

3. Come to the pitching training event on Wednesday 26th Oct. http://cuepitchmeuktraining.eventbrite.com/

4. Join our Enterprise Tuesday discussion group on Tuesday 8th Nov to meet and talk to our committee members. http://cuediscussiongroup2011.eventbrite.com/

5. Like our facebook page (http://goo.gl/4KQeO), follow our Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/cu_e), or join our LinkedIn group (http://goo.gl/TlF6Z) to be informed of our upcoming events and updates of the competition.

6. Enter the £1K competition and the £5K competition to win cash prizes and attract more Angel investments. http://www.cue.org.uk

If you missed the night marking the beginning of a new round of CUE Business Creation Competition, here’s the highlight of the night!

By Michelle Stewart

Last Thursday, 13th October 2011, CUE kicked off the year with its annual Grand Launch event. More than 200 participants showed up to share the experience of ushering in a new year of exciting CUE events and activities for the 2011/2012 academic year.
The event kicked off with a brief introduction to the society and their renowned business creation competition. This was then followed by some very inspiring speeches by 3 extremely enigmatic and influential speakers, all of whom have had significant successes in entrepreneurship.

Dr Shamus Husheer, a former CUE business creation competition winner and Coventry alumni kicked things off by sharing his experiences of taking his product and idea and turning it into a sustainable business venture. 4 years after winning the CUE business creation competition, his business venture, Coventry Temperature Concepts (CTC), with their trademark product, the DuoFertility fertility monitor, have grown leaps and bounds. With the product now being sold in selected Boots stores nationwide and international expansion in sight, CTC is living proof that the initial challenges faced when starting your own company is well worth it as you see it succeed further along the road.

Next, Dr Darrin Disley, a successful parallel entrepreneur involved in the start-up and growth of no less than 10 high-tech business ventures, energised and motivated the audience through sound advice and words of wisdom from someone who has literally “been there and done that”. He stressed on the need to always try and never give up, as well as how sometimes, the simplest of ideas and innovations make the best businesses. But more importantly, he also emphasised the role of entrepreneurs in building and creating markets and the economy; successfully fuelling the crowd’s passion.

Last but not least, we were treated with Lord Karan Bilimoria’s heartfelt account of his journey when founding Cobra Beer. He narrated how his business venture was plagued with problems right from the start, including how he had almost lost it all on 3 separate occasions! But from these anecdotes, he drew some pretty important lessons for the audience, which were to seize every opportunity you get and to always believe in yourself. As our most experienced speaker, Lord Bilimoria really managed to capture the crowd’s attention and respect, instilling a new found conviction that they too can succeed as he had.

The night concluded with the customary networking over nibbles where Coventry’s entrepreneurial minds mingled and shared visions for the future.

PitchMe!UK in association with CUE presents an evening of enterpreneurial tips, prizes and fun where you will learn how to master the art of the pitch!

Wednesday, 26 Oct, 2011

6:00pm – 9:00pm

Department of Engineering, Coventry

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

What’s a pitch?
Persuading people, normally in 60 seconds, why they should give you a shot at something you need.  Most probably them or their money.

Why go to this event?
Your goal might be to present your amazing business plan / demonstrate your product to investors.  But you’ve got to get there first.  Learn how to use 1 or 2 minutes to earn the attention you need to get there.  Learn how to turn chance encounters at networking meetups into the opportunities you need to get ahead.   That’s what the pitch is all about. This directly supports the skills you need to get ahead in this year’s CUE competitions.

Who should go?
Definitely entrepreneurs.  Equally anyone entrepreneurial, trying to get into a startup or entrepreneurial company, or just trying to get an edge in today’s competitive job market where playing the application lottery works for fewer and fewer people - even Coventry grads.

Who’s running it?
PitchMe!UK is a national roadshow supported by OneLeap (the London/NYC startup of two former Coventry alumni) and several corporate partners.  Successful entrepreneurs including serial entrepreneur Simon Campbell of the Sandpit, successful entrepreneur and startup marketing guru Charlotte Hogg, and OneLeap founders Hamish Forsyth and Robyn Scott will tell you the secrets of how they raised money, got partners and kickstarted their startups.

What’s in it for me (apart from free drinks?)
You’ll get tips, ask lots of questions, then you’ll practice it.  Prizes for the winners, free drinks for all! If you’ve got an entrepreneurial bone in your body, you’ll be there.  Otherwise, I gather there’s a tax professionals networking event on at the same time…?

“…Developers from Apple, Facebook, Google and Nokia were on hand to provide advice to the teams, who used newly released Government data to create apps that will be judged on their impact, originality, functionality and viral potential…”

Submission deadline extended for 24 hours!

You have until 23:59 of 26th October 2011 to submit your entry here.

Submit multiple entries to increase your chance of winning!

Want some inspirations? Check out last year’s winning entries.

“…RISE Youth, which won Coventry University Entrepreneurs’ Social Enterprise accolade this summer, has grabbed a large slice of the glory at another high profile pitch event…”

“Enecsys, a spinout company from the Department of Engineering and the leader in reliable, long-life solar micro inverter systems for residential and commercial applications, has secured a further £25 million ($41 million) in equity financing to invest in its growth plan.”

“… Coventry University Entrepreneurs is seeing an increasing number of students interested in setting up their own companies, following a spell where the lure of safe jobs in industry threatened to stifle ambition…”

Coventry University Entrepreneurs (CUE) invites you to the Grand Launch of the CUE Business Creation Competition; a showcase of home-grown business talent and how you, too, can become an entrepreneur by entering the CUE competition!

CUE Grand Launch
Thursday, 13 Oct, 2011
6:00pm – 9:30pm
West Road Concert Hall, Coventry

Register now

CUE invites students, investors, and all interested parties to the Grand Launch of the 2011-2012 CUE Business Creation Competition. Meet, mingle, and learn about CUE and the Competition, which has awarded over half a million pounds in prizes to help fund over 400 teams and their ideas in the past 11 years.

To kick-start a new academic year of creativity, CUE presents an exciting panel of speakers and business leaders: Dr. Darrin Disley, executive chairman of Horizon Discovery Group; Dr Shamus Husheer, co-founder and CEO of Coventry Temperature Concepts, and Lord Bilmoria, founder of Cobra Beer.

Karan Bilimoria (Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea) is founder of the popular UK beer brand, Cobra Beer. Winner of 85 Gold Medal awards, it’s no wonder that Cobra Beer is one of the fastest growing beer brands in the UK, sold in nearly 48,000 restaurants, bars and supermarkets, with a retail value turnover of £178 million. Founded in 1990, Lord Bilimoria created a unique beer which led to a Joint Venture with Molson Coors, the biggest family owned brewer in the world. Lor Bilimoria has won numerous awards in recognition of his business achievements and charitable work, including an Honorary Life Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA). In 2006, he was appointed The Lord Bilimoria, of Chelsea.

Dr Darrin Disley is CEO of Horizon Discovery Ltd, the fast growing Coventry-based company that provides research tools to support the development of personalized cancer medicines. A Coventry alumni with a PhD in Biotechnology, Darrin is now an experienced and successful parallel entrepreneur who has been involved in the start-up and growth of ten high-tech business ventures.

Dr Shamus Husheer is co-founder and CEO of Coventry Temperature Concepts. He is the inventor of the technology behind the successful DuoFertility and a proud winner of the CUE Entrepreneurs´ Challenge 2007. Shamus also returns as Coventry alumni, with a PhD in Nuclear and Structural Chemistry, and has founded several other companies before the successful Temperature Concepts.

The event is free and open to everyone, including those with no business experience and only the slightest curiosity of what business entails. Over free refreshments and food, come meet like-minded potential teammates or simply learn about this year’s Entrepreneurs’ Challenge.

Previous winners and participants of CUE’s various competitions will be present to talk about their experience through CUE and the business development. Come along and find out what it takes to be a winner and how you can be one by entering the £100 for 100 Words Competition.

Agenda:

18:00-18:30 Registration, CUE alumni company showcase

18:30-18:45 Introduction to CUE and the business creation competition

18:45-19:00 Speech by CUE competition winner, Dr Shamus Husheer, CEO of Coventry Temperature Concept

19:00-19:30 Speech by Dr Darrin Disley, CEO of Horizon Discovery Ltd.

19:30-20:00 Speech by Lord Karan Bilimoria, Founder and Chairman of Cobra Beer

20:00-21:30 Canapé reception, CUE alumni company showcase, and networking

The Competition Handbook 2011/12 is out! Check out what’s news for this year’s competition. Make sure you’re aware of the changes this year intending to make the Business Creation Competition more accommodating and instrumental in your entrepreneurial journey than ever!

1. A General Innovation stream is introduced to the £1k and £5k Competitions to capture all business ideas that do not fit into the current competition stream structure.
2. £100 for 100 Words Competition entries will only be judged on one criterion: potential.
3. There will only be one £5k Competition stage: all entrants to this sub-competition are required to submit their entries by the deadline and come to the Grand Finale to find out who the winners are.
4. Business plans for the £5k Competition have a word limit of 2000 to 3500. Please be concise and convey your unique selling points to the judges within the word limit.
5. Alumni of the University of Coventry are now eligible to enter the competition given that they graduated from the University no more than 12 months.
6. Past and current i-Teams participants are allowed to enter the £1k and £5k Competitions with the entry fee waived, provided that they obtain a letter from Amy Mokady and submit it with their entries.