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Turing Festival 2013 - Our twitter impression

We were lucky enough to attend the Turing Festival this year in Edinburgh. Two of the LAUNCH.ed Entern businesses Orfeas Boteas and TwoBigEars also took part in the festivities. This year the Turing Festival brought together a range of digital technology and web elite to discuss and celebrate digital culture and creativity. Speakers included author Neal Stephenson, founder of square Jim McKelvey, Chief Scientist at salesforce JP Rangaswami and many more. Social media was absolutely buzzing throughout the weekend, particularly twitter. We’ve gathered together some of our favourite posts and images.

If you couldn’t be there, you can enjoy a twitter impression of this fabulous weekend.

Starting Turing Festival hearing monster sounds from @orfeasBoteas

“Designers need to start with people not with the tools @freeagentapp”

@TwoBig_Ears stabbing monsters at #TuringFest

@kishan_guptas

“Great makers see value in the invisible-UI/UX: art and digital. @freeagent #turingfest”

@noellechels

"The Web isn't black and white, it's rich, extremely diverse and it requires pragmatic thinking." | Vitaly Friedman | @smashingmag

@Square discussing how it all started with a problem

@sheilaenn

“Fascinating partnership between Uni of Edinburgh and Royal College of Surgeons teaches advanced surgical techniques online” #turingfest

@AndrewGirdwood

Retailers shift to omnichannel is influencing the future of money and Visa's plans. #turingfest

@Launch_ed Great way to end #turingfest

LAUNCH.ed to Success - Sam Zawadzki

This is the first in a series of Launch.ed To Success stories you’ll find here on our blog. Sam Zawadzki started working with LAUNCH.ed back in 2010 and is now a fully seasoned entrepreneur. Here is some insight into the experience of starting up a business from Sam's point of view.

___________________________________________________________

A little over two years ago I started discussing a business venture with my friend Bilal. We were both students and after meeting LAUNCH.ed's Becci Barr we had become obsessed with starting a business.

Every Sunday evening we would meet up in empty university rooms, from Old College to DHT and eventually the Informatics Forum. We would sneak into a warm well lit room with great internet and talk for hours about business plans. Working with the team at Launch.ed really helped to structure our plans, they coached us through preparing a pitch to the Edinburgh Technology Transfer Fund for a £5,000 warrant investment. It was this funding that provided the seed capital for us to get started.

Fast-forward a little and things are going pretty well. We now both work full time running a property advertising website called www.advancetogo.com which helps private landlords across the UK find new tenants for FREE. The website provides a fully automated service that lets landlords create a property advert and publish it to Rightmove the UK's largest property advertising website.

Since graduating last year the business journey has been a nonstop adventure. AdvancetoGO has been featured on SKY1 prime time TV, gained investment from billionaire tycoon Richard Branson, and won numerous awards including £50,000 of business support from The Pitch UK.

As a company our mission is to make property advertising online easy. Our main focus now is to help Landlords across the whole of the UK find great tenants. There is lots of work to do and it's all pretty exciting. Who knows what adventures are on the horizon…

If you have been supported by LAUNCH.ed in the past and would like to share your story as part of the LAUNCH.ed to Success series please contact [email protected]

Straight forward education for the straight forward problem of the Entrepreneur

Anyone in business understands that learning and stretching yourself is a daily reality if you’re going to be successful. This is likely why we see so many University of Edinburgh Students become entrepreneurial. Students understand being out of their comfort zone and are generally not risk adverse.

Often as an entrepreneur you learn through experience, getting your hands dirty and through the support of mentors and peers. However sometimes it’s good to just get some straight forward advice and education on the straightforward issues. Tax for example.

Great news! HMRC have developed some really straightforward online learning tools for people in business. No more fretting at night if the tax man is going to come knocking. You can learn all you need to know here and now.

Check out this list of online modules. .

Starting Your Own Business

Exporting Goods (UKTI)

Trading with other EU Countries (UKTI)

Tax guidance for social enterprises

What do Kanye West and The University of Edinburgh have in common?

Speech Graphics has shortened the gap between The University of Edinburgh and the Hollywood hip hop stardom of Kanye West.

Speech Graphics was formed in 2010 by Michael Berger and Gregor Hofer as a spin-out from The University of Edinburgh. They are an award winning company that solves the fastest growing problem in digital animation today: lip synchronization. The company has quickly positioned themselves to become the leading lip-sync service and software provider for the global video game industry – and now the music video industry.

Recently the Edinburgh based company was contacted by an American production company working on a music video for Kayne West’s new song co-written with French dance act Daft Punk. The video features a digitally rendered version of Mr. West dancing and singing for more than three minutes and specialist animation was required to make this happen.

Speech Graphics received a call on a Friday and was given an exceptionally tight deadline to deliver the final product by Tuesday. The project entailed animating elements of Mr. West face such as ears, lips, jaws, and skin to create a realistic representation of him singing.

Despite the remarkably difficult time constraints the entrepreneurs could not turn down such an amazing prospect. The team was able to deliver on time, which has resulted in a brilliant opportunity to demonstrate what their amazing technology can deliver.

There will certainly be more exciting projects in the future for Michael and Gregor.

Speech Graphics worked intensively with LAUNCH.ed when they formed their company. If you would like to know more about their journey visit our website here: http://bit.ly/1co2bDP

To learn more about Speech Graphics visit: http://www.speech-graphics.com

Image Author: S. Affandi via creative commons License

Five Ways to Reap the Rewards of Competing

It’s not just the sunshine that has contributed to an enormously fruitful July for Edinburgh University and the Edinburgh College of Art. Our students have been snapping up awards and recognition at business competitions galore!

It started off when Michael Yiin Shih Jie and Laura Jayne Nevin were awarded £50,000 each worth of start up support from the SIE Young innovators challenge for their innovative business ideas. Then Pitch Patch grabbed £5000 worth of support from JICS for their team-sourcing technology platform. These entrepreneurs will likely see even greater benefits that reach far beyond the monetary value of the support secured.

Competitions are a great way to raise the profile of your business, give some legitimacy to your business idea, and make long term business contacts. Also, let’s face it, being an entrepreneur is hard, especially when you are just starting out. A good pat on the back is worth its weight in gold.

There can be a down side to competing in business competitions. Sometimes competitions are expensive to enter, they can be time consuming and can sometimes take your eye off your most important priority… your business. This shouldn’t keep you away from the glory of the race. There are ways to ensure competing is right for your business.

Here are our top 5 tips on striking the right balance and getting the most out of business competitions.

READ THE CRITERIA: It’s key to read and understand the criteria of an awards programme. Often, there will be very specific criteria that judges will need to adhere to. This is especially the case when monetary awards are involved. Before you even start, make sure that your business fits the awards programme. Read the criteria in its entirety. If your business doesn’t fit the mould, it won’t matter how robust your application is or how successful your business, you won’t have a chance of winning. Don’t be afraid to contact the organisers and ask questions to ensure you are the type of business they are looking for. You may even get a few pointers in the process. Good awards applications start with a good understanding of what the judges want to see. Therefore the better you know the criteria the better chance you have of addressing it in your application.

BUDGET YOUR TIME: If you are going to commit to applying for a series or an individual awards programme, It will be less disruptive to your business if you plan your time and do not procrastinate. Try and dedicate a few minutes every day/week to working on your application leading up to the deadline. This will take away from the last minute stress, improve the quality of your application and cut down on time spent. Sounds obvious, but it makes a difference.

SAVE AND REUSE: Before you send in an application make sure you’ve saved yourself a copy. You can reuse this information in a variety of ways. This work could be the start of a good case study for your website, a blog post, a pitch for some business, or another awards application of course.If you are going to spend a significant amount of time or money on a project in your business, a good rule is to try and use the work three times to ensure you see the value.

LOOK FOR HELP: There is no reason why you have to write every word yourself. In fact sometimes it’s easier for somebody else to brag about you. Do you have somebody that knows your business well and would be willing to write down some notes? Use them! It’s also a good idea to meet somebody for a chat to generate ideas. Often you’ll forget about all the impressive things you’ve done. Often business support organisations (like Launch.ed, Business Gateway or Prince’s Trust) are very willing to help give you feedback on your applications. Remember your success makes their job that much more rewarding. So get them involved too.

YOU DON’T NEED TO WIN: Winning is good of course, and you should certainly try and win. However winning shouldn’t be your only objective when entering awards programmes. You will have spent far too much time and effort on this journey to only look for accolades. This should be an opportunity for you to build your network, make new business contacts, and gain valuable insight from industry professionals on your business and ideas. Ensure that you attend events associated with the awards programme, and make sure you always ask for feedback on your application. Ask questions at every opportunity. If you aren’t successful the first time the most important question to ask is “should I reapply next year?”. There is always a good chance your application was well received by the judges but for some reason or another just didn’t make the cut. It could be with a little more experience or progress in your business you are able to take the grand prize next year.

These five tips if followed should give you an edge on your next attempt, or at the very least help you gain more from the experience of entering business competitions. However we’d love to know more about your experiences. Have any of you recently competed? Do you have some more tips to help make business competitions work for you? We’d love to hear what you have to say.

#launch #competitions #a

Meet our enterns!

This summer LAUNCH.ed, in conjunction with the Santander Breakthrough programme, is delighted to be hosting four "enterns"! The enterns started last week and will be working with us for three months, each on their own businesses and will be paid a salary. We have designed a detailed support programme for them over the summer so they should have plenty to do and targets to hit! This is the first time we have done a programme like this - the pilot project - and we hope that it will be a great success! (No pressure enterns!) :)

Who are the enterns?

Our four enterns applied earlier this year and were subject to a very competitive process! We received 34 really high-quality applications, conducted several interviews and finally selected our four enterns:

Helen Fisher (Helen Fisher Design - product: Reveal) - winner of the LAUNCH.ed Innovation Cup 2013

The major carriers of infection in hospitals are hands and the surfaces they come into contact with. 30,000 patients per year are affected by hospital acquired infections in Scotland alone and this is estimated to cost the NHS in the UK £1Bn. With thorough cleaning, infection rates can be cut significantly. But this isn't just about a more effective cleaning solution; it's about more effective cleaning. Helen's product Reveal ensures that washed hands are free of infection and can work alongside existing products from liquid cleaners to sprays and wipes.

Abesh Thakur (Two Big Ears)

We are becoming increasingly bombarded with visual information throughout our working lives and the emergence of smartphones means this never ceases. Using their background in sound design, acoustics and programming, Two Big Ears have created a mobile platform that allows sound to be used to augment the user experience. Sounds can be precisely positioned, shaped and controlled and the platform has already been used to create augmented reality games and enhance museum exhibits.

David Hunter (Caddie Charger)

A device to keep your mobile phone or GPS device topped up while on the golf course. David successfully prototyped his device and tested with customers. Having secured seed investment from the university through LAUNCH.ed and won a Santander award for his business pitch, David is now ready to finalise the design and have it ready for initial volume manufacture.

Orfeas Boteas (Dehumaniser)

Creating monster sounds for the entertainment industry is a time consuming procedure, which requires the recording and processing of various animal sounds or human voices in order to create the wanted sound. Dehumaniser is a sound design tool that makes this procedure instant; giving the opportunity to actors, sound designers and voice specialists to perform while their voice is being altered. A prototype version of the software has several predesigned monster presets and uses multiple layers of sound manipulation techniques simultaneously. While this version has already been used on Hollywood productions, an full version will be created which allows advanced customisation of the effects and delivers studio-quality results.

What will they be doing?

The enterns will be working full-time on their own businesses in addition to attending our startup bootcamp and weekly workshops on market research, sales, IP, legal, finance, team builiding, product realisation and pitching! We have set them up with office space next to our LAUNCH.ed offices so that they can pop in anytime. We are really excited to be hosting and supporting our enterns this summer and can't wait to see what they can build!

Summer Startup Bootcamp!

Who can attend?

Do you have a business idea that you want to explore further? Do you want to be your own boss? Are you looking for some support and inspiration to get you started? Then you might be interested in our LAUNCH.ed Summer Startup Bootcamp in July!

The bootcamp is designed for students and recent alumni (within 2 years since graduation) with a business idea and will help you to take your business from idea to pitch. We cover market segmentation, customer development, business models, market research and pitching among other topics. The bootcamp is free to attend and includes lunch, coffee & biscuits and a dinner.

Agenda

The first day of the bootcamp will be 8th July, then there is a brief interlude for participants to do some homework before day two on 16th July.

Day 1 - Monday, 8th July

Time: 09.00 - 17.00 Food: Coffee and lunch provided Venue: Conference Room, 4th floor, Business School, University of Edinburgh

At the end of the day LAUNCH.ed will also buy you dinner at a local restaurant.

Day 2 - Tuesday, 16th July

Time: 09.00 - 17.00 Food: Coffee and lunch provided Venue: Conference Room, 4th floor, Business School, University of Edinburgh

Where can I sign up?

There are only a few places left so we encourage you to sign up ASAP! If you would like to attend please register here:

http://startupbootcampedinburgh.eventbrite.co.uk

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Startup Bootcamp is funded by the Open Innovation Project, a three-year, transnational initiative to promote Open Innovation throughout North-West Europe.

Innovation Cup 2013 Winners!

Innovation Cup winner Helen (centre, holding the cup) and runners up Liita (2nd from the left) and Eimear (4th from the right) with the Edinburgh University Principal, Professor Timothy O'Shea (3rd from the left) and the judges Jock Millican (left), Mary Jane Brouwers (3rd from right) and Simon Hardy (2nd from right). Plus our own Paul Devlin (right).

Yesterday saw the annual LAUNCH.ed Innovation Cup competition which was hosted with the Entrepreneurship Club at the Business School. Six finalists were selected to pitch their business in front of three judges; each finalist was given 10 minutes to pitch then took questions for 15 minutes from the judges and the audience. All of the pitches were excellent and the standard was very high.

After much deliberation the judges finally decided on the winners, who were announced at the evening reception:

Winner - £5,000 award Helen Fisher, Helen Fisher Design Ltd.

Runners up - £1,000 award each Liita Naukushu, Kaliitasha Eimear O'Carroll, Restored Hearing Ltd.

Finalists (see image below): Varun Nair, Two Big Ears David Hunter, Caddie Charger Jiansen He, Keep in Touch

Congratulations to all of the award winners and the finalists! We received a record number of entries for the Innovation Cup this year and look forward to working with everyone who applied at our startup bootcamps, business advisor meetings and future events.

Entrepreneurial Achievement Award 2013

This year we also presented the first LAUNCH.ed Entrepreneurial Achievement Award. This award is a new accolade that is to be presented annually in June to a University of Edinburgh student alumnus who has made a major impact through entrepreneurship to the world of business.

We were delighted to announce last night that the winner of the 2013 award is Tom Griffiths of FanDuel. Tom graduated from the School of Informatics with an MSc in informatics and then embarked upon a PhD in machine learning. While doing his PhD, Tom and his team developed Hubdub, a news prediction site which eventually became Fanduel. Fanduel, a fantasy sports game company, has attracted several million in funding from venture capitalists and now employs over 50 people in their offices in Edinburgh & New York.

Overall the event yesterday was a major success with over 50 people attending. A big congratulations to Helen for wining the Innovation Cup and to the runners up, Liita and Eimear. Well done to all of the finalists for giving excellent pitches too!

Startup Bootcamp!

If you have been inspired by the Innovation Cup then you might be interested in our LAUNCH.ed Summer Startup Bootcamp next month! The bootcamp is designed for students and recent alumni (within 2 years since graduation) with a business idea and will help you to take your business from idea to pitch. We cover market segmentation, customer development, business models, market research and pitching among other topics. The bootcamp is free to attend and includes lunch, coffee & biscuits and a dinner. If you would like to attend please register here:

http://startupbootcampedinburgh.eventbrite.co.uk

The Innovation Cup is funded by the Open Innovation Project, a three-year, transnational initiative to promote Open Innovation throughout North-West Europe.

Record number of applications come in to LAUNCH.ed!

Over the last 10 days we have received a record number of applications here at LAUNCH.ed! Applications for our annual competition, the Innovation Cup closed on 24th May and our Santander enternship application deadline was last Friday, 31st May. We collected approximately 60 applications!

We will be letting people know if they have been selected for interview/pitching in the next couple of days. There are several high-quality entries, so it is really challenging to select who will go forward to the next stage of the process (hence the reason for the drowning coffee cup above - the LAUNCH.ed team have increased their coffee intake today).

The Innovation Cup pitching competition & party will be held on the 19th June and is open to all, so if you would like to come along and watch or join us afterwards for the party then please register here: http://innovationcup2013.eventbrite.co.uk/

In addition to our competitions, we will be running a 2-day "Business Bootcamp" in July (8th & 16th) and we would like to invite you to attend. The bootcamp is designed for students and recent alumni (

The Competition Zone!

****Updated!****

With so many business plan and pitching competitions going on it can be difficult for entrepreneurs to keep track of them, so here at LAUNCH.ed we decided to put together a list of competitions that are relevant to Scottish startups. The list is not exhaustive and we are keen to hear about any more that we might have missed, so please email us ([email protected]) if you can update us!

For each competition we have listed the initial deadline, prize value and a link to the website. In some cases, only the month for the deadline is included because the exact date had not been advertised at the time of writing. We have kept Scottish startups in mind when compiling this list but many are open to entrepreneurs across the UK and we hope that the list is useful to a wide network of people. We would advise you to check the eligibility requirements before applying for any competition because, although many are open to all, they can vary in regard to age, industry area and student status.

The competitions are quite different in terms of application process, prize value and method. Some of them will only require a couple of hours of your time to apply and others may take days, though of course it is up to you how long you spend on your application and to assess if the time investment is worth it. Don't feel that you have to apply for them all!

If you are an Edinburgh University student, member of staff or recent alumnus (within 2-3 years) and you would like to discuss your business idea or any of the competitions listed below then feel free to get in touch with us at LAUNCH.ed. We run training courses and workshops and several of our companies have gone on to win a number of these competitions.

Pitching & Business Plan Competitions

Competition Deadline Prizes Website Shell Livewire (monthly) 31/x/13 £1K http://www.shell-livewire.org/awards/awards-start LAUNCH.ed Innovation Cup 24/5/13 £5K http://www.launch.ed.ac.uk/contact.aspx Young Innovator's challenge (SIE) 31/5/13 up to £50K http://www.sie.ac.uk/about-sie/sie-activities/young-innovators-challenge.aspx Cambridge Elevator Kickstart 14/6/12 Package worth £17K http://www.cambridgeelevator.com/KickStart.aspx The Pitch 30/6/13 Package worth £50K http://www.thepitchuk.com/ UK European Satellite Navigation Competition 30/6/13 £5K + package http://ukesnc.com/ RBS Enterprising you 19/7/13 £25K, 10K, 5K http://www.enterprisingu.com/ James Dyson Award - engineering/ product design 01/8/13 £30K + 10K (& 2nd, 3rd) http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/2498 Discovering startups 15/8/12 package worth £4K http://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/dsu/ Edinburgh E Club Santander November 2013 £1K http://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/eclub/competitions LAUNCH.ed Business Ideas Competition December 2013 iPad, Kindle, iPod http://www.launch.ed.ac.uk/contact.aspx Lloyds TSB Enterprise Awards January 2014 £10K http://www.lloydstsbenterpriseawards.com/

Social Enterprise Competitions

Competition Deadline Prizes Website Santander SEDA June 2013 £50K http://www.santanderseda.co.uk/

Business Awards

Competition Deadline Prizes Website British Innovation Gateway 21/6/13 £100K https://www.thebigawards.co.uk/ Q Prize late 2013 £100K https://qualcommventures.com/qprize/

We hope that this list is useful and good luck!

Paid placements available for four student entrepreneurs over the summer!

Do you want to work full-time on your business idea over the summer? Do you need a salary but want to avoid working in a bar every night? Then the LAUNCH.ed summer enternship scheme is for you!

Important dates:

31st May: deadline for applications 3rd-8th June: interviews June/July: start enternship

What is it?

This summer LAUNCH.ed will be offering four students (or recent graduates) £1,000 per month for three months to develop their business venture. The successful applicants will be hosted by LAUNCH.ed and given office space, business support and advice for the duration of their placement.

What would be expected of me?

The successful applicants will be expected to work full-time on their business ventures, in brief they will:

develop a viable business idea.

test a set of assumptions with potential customers.

identify & analyse specific market segment(s) for the business.

develop and implement a business plan.

attend regular business training sessions.

provide regular progress updates.

present a final report after three months.

Who is eligible to apply?

The summer enternships programme is open to all students and recent graduates (<2 years since graduation) from the University of Edinburgh. Applicants must be:

a 3rd or 4th year undergraduate, MSc (completed degree), PhD student (submitted) or recent graduate (within two years).

able to commit to working 35 hours per week at the ETTC offices in Kings Buildings.

Edinburgh University students or graduates only.

only one applicant per company is permitted.

applicants are responsible for ensuring that their own working status is legal.

What's in it for me?

A chance to develop your business

Business training (market analysis, business planning, customer development, strategy, competition analysis)

Regular meetings with a LAUNCH.ed business advisor

A 3-month salary

Office space in ETTC in Kings Buildings

Are you up for the challenge? Do you think that your business idea would benefit from three months of full-time attention? Would you like to test your ideas with customers and receive tailored business advice? If the answers to these questions are YES! then apply now at:

http://www.launch.ed.ac.uk/downloads/Enternships.pdf

We look forward to working with you!

The enternships are being generously supported by the Santander Breakthrough programme.

New face at LAUNCH.ed!

We have a new business advisor at LAUNCH.ed! Alison Gee has recently joined the team as a business advisor for student companies. Alison joined Launch.ed in April 2013 and has the role of providing business creation support and advice to students, staff and recent alumni through one-on-one business support, workshops and clinics.

Her early career was in marketing and market research with General Motors and Lucas. A brief interlude of world travel and crocodile counting was followed by a move into the equally exciting and varied world of business start-up and enterprise training. For the last 23 years Alison has been involved with business formation advice, training and micro finance. Latterly this has involved working with the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust during which time she assisted in over 500 new starts spanning a broad base of industry sectors.

Alison graduated with a BA(Hons) in Business Studies (a long time ago) and has more recently been awarded Chartered Institue of Management Accountants diploma.

We are delighted to welcome Alison to the team!

Edinburgh's cutting edge tech showcase - EIE 2013

The LAUNCH.ed team had a day out of the office to attend the exciting EIE 2013 showcase last Thursday. Over 60 new Scottish companies were selected to exhibit at the event which was held in the Assembly Rooms on George Street. This year, for the first time, companies from the biotech and cleantech spaces were represented at EIE, in addition to the technology sector.

After a bacon roll and an inspiring morning keynote talk by seasoned entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter, we watched both video pitches and live pitches (see photo of Alex Cole, Director of Peekabu, above) from the entrepreneurs who were exhibiting. This was their chance to attract the attention of one of the many investors in the audience and answer any questions. There was also a trophy for the best pitch of the day and the audience were asked to tweet their score using the EIE hashtag - congratulations to Mark Simmers of Celtic Renewables who won!

The afternoon was split into three parallel pitching sessions on biotech (run by the Edinburgh Bioquarter), cleantech (run by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation) and technology (run by Informatics Ventures) and this was followed by an excellent keynote by angel investor Sherry Coutu who gave some top tips to both startups and investors.

The day was topped off by a drinks reception in the exhibition area followed by dinner and a great interview with Olympic silver medallist Michael Jamieson. In addition to a lot of business card exchanging, chatting and pitching, there was a lively conversation about the event on Twitter; you can read on overview of the comments from this Storify summary of the event.

Well done to Ronnie, Danny and the Informatics Ventures team and the teams from the ECCI and Edinburgh Bioquarter for organising such a fantastic event! We are already looking forward to next year!

Innovation Cup 2013: Win £5,000 for your business!

It's nearly summertime and that means the annual LAUNCH.ed Innovation Cup competition is open for entries! The Innovation Cup is a business competition for researchers, students, and graduates (within 2 years) of the University of Edinburgh who have a business idea or young business venture. There is a £5,000 prize for the winner!

How to enter

The competition is now open for entries and the deadline is the 24th May. To apply, all you have to do is submit a summary of your idea or venture using the Business Summary Submission Template which can be downloaded from here.

Process

The shortlisted finalists will be notified on Friday, 31st May. The finalists will then have two weeks to prepare a 10-minute pitch to present to a panel of expert judges on Wednesday 19th June. The competition will be judged on both the business summary and pitch.

LAUNCH.ed will be joining forces with the Entrepreneurship Club for the final pitches, and we will be hosting a post-pitching party at the Business School from 5:30pm where the winner will be announced!

Key dates

Competition Deadline: Friday, May 24, 2013 Pitching & Judging: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 Awards & Drinks: Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The Innovation Cup is funded by the Open Innovation Project, a three-year, transnational initiative to promote Open Innovation throughout North-West Europe.

thinkfresh launches in Edinburgh!

Congratulations to thinkfresh on their l(a)unch event at the TechCube today! thinkfresh is a lunch delivery service in Edinburgh that brings locally sourced meals to your office. Their menu includes tasty soups, fresh salads, tortillas and healthy sandwiches.

The thinkfresh team are all Edinburgh University students who come from three different continents. Chris, Carr, Alanna and Sana developed the idea for thinkfresh here in Edinburgh and are now working hard to grow the company. thinkfresh only uses locally sourced ingredients and their approach combines sustainability and healthy eating. Using bicycles, they deliver lunches to health conscious customers located in central Edinburgh offices.

If you want to have a thinkfresh lunch delivered to your door then check out their website: http://www.thinkfreshfood.co.uk/ and Facebook page.

Entrepreneurial Events in Edinburgh!

There are several entrepreneurial events going on in Scotland and LAUNCH.ed were delighted to be one of the sponsors for the popular Power of Youth event held at RBS Gogarburn yesterday. Entrepreneurs from Scotland and around the world flocked to the conference centre to network, hear from successful startups and get advice on how to build their companies. According to the PoY team there are apparently 372 sources of finance available for startups in Scotland, a number which surprised the audience. We are hoping to get hold of the list and will post a link on the LAUNCH.ed blog when we do!

This week is World Creativity and Innovation Week (#wciw) so hopefully this will encourage more entrepreneurs to take the plunge and start a business! We thought we would list some of the upcoming events in Edinburgh to help inspire everyone! Events are a good opportunity to learn from battle-scarred entrepreneurs and meet people who you can discuss your business with. A short list of free events coming up in the next two months are listed below:

April

Scottish Converge Challenge Introduction: Are You Interested in Winning £35K in Cash to Boost Your Business? 23rd April at 6pm, LT3, University of Edinburgh Business School.

Gregor Lawson, Morphsuits (see image above) - E Club - 25th April at 6:30pm, Conference Room, University of Edinburgh Business School.

iVTuesday - Alex van Someren, 30th April at 5:45pm, The Royal College of Surgeons, King Khalid Building Symposium Hall, Hill Square, Edinburgh EH8 9DS.

May

Social media: tweets, posts & analytics, 15th May, 1pm-5pm, Auditorium, University of Edinburgh Business School.

Becoming a company director or self employed: understanding the tax system (HMRC), 22nd May, 9am-1pm, LT2, University of Edinburgh Business School.

Living the Dream: Grant Property & Fourth World Art, 23rd May, 6pm, Auditorium, University of Edinburgh Business School.

June

Publishing: Evolution, Disruption and the Future, 12th June, 9:30am - 5pm, Auditorium, University of Edinburgh Business School.

We hope to see you there!

Converge Challenge Competition Launches - 60K top prize!

The Competition

Are you a student or a member of staff at a Scottish university with an innovative idea? Then the Converge Challenge could be for you! The University of Edinburgh is a key partner in this venture and are keen to support anyone with an interesting business concept.

The Converge Challenge has a top prize of £60,000 and is the largest business competition and entrepreneurial training programme in Scotland. It provides training, hands-on mentoring, business support and offers cash prizes up to £35,000. The competition is open to staff and students of all Scottish Universities and Research Institutes. Any industry sector, product- or service-based ideas at any stage of development will be considered.

Deadline

The application deadline for initial submission is Friday 10 May 2013, but organizers are reminding applicants to submit an entry to the Converge Challenge business plan competition as soon as possible. The team behind the competition has brought together a group of experts to support the Converge Challenge applicants and to help them develop their business ideas. Through a combination of training and advice the programme aims to guide them and help them to get their businesses off the ground.

The infographic above, from Heriot Watt University, reveals some of the stats from last year's Converge Challenge including the number of applications, the percentages of staff/students and geographical distribution of applicants.

More information

We will be holding an event at the Edinburgh Entrepreneurship Club that will cover what the Converge Challenge is about, who can apply and how to apply; we will also hear from a previous winner.

The Converge Challenge website can be found here.

For more competitions relevant to Scottish businesses have a look at our previous blog post: The Competition Zone.

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