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November 2015
UCL links up with Business Reporter to present the Medal for Entrepreneurship
WHO
WILL IT
BE?
Inside
You can
help
decide
In search of the UK’s
prize entrepreneur
Distributed within the SUNDAY Telegraph, produced and published by Lyonsdown which takes sole responsibility for the contents
10
Business Reporter
The search is on for the entrepreneur
who has given most back to society. UCL
(University College London), one of the
foremost seats of learning in the world,
is linking up with Business Reporter to
launch the first UCL/Business Reporter
Medal for Entrepreneurship.
We are looking to honour someone
who has founded their own successful
business and then used their business
skills to promote enterprise and provide
opportunities for others. The aim is to
highlight committed entrepreneurs who
have worked to benefit society, not just by
writing big cheques, but by making use of
their capabilities and experience. Timothy
Barnes, Director, UCL Advances, said:
an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph
Find us online: business-reporter.co.uk | Join us on LinkedIn: Business Reporter UK
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“Entrepreneurship is vital to the success
of the British economy and we here at
UCL are determined to play our part
in encouraging businessmen and women
to develop to their full potential.”
Bradley Scheffer, MD of Business
Reporter, is delighted to be involved in
this search. “We are always keen to write
about successful entrepreneurs so I’m
particularly pleased we are involved with
this award. I am sure there will be many
deserving candidates – good luck to all the
nominees.”
Judging for the award will take place
in early December, and the presentation
will be at an event at UCL in February of
next year.
An entrepreneur who
has ‘given back’...
W
hat do turning waste
coffee grounds into biofuel,
creating a new website to
advise gap-year students
and volunteers travelling
off the beaten track, and a technology to help
shops understand the demographics of customers
coming through their doors all have in common?
They are just three of the many successful
start-ups which began life at University College
London. The projects were launched by student
entrepreneurs who were helped by UCL advisers
with business planning and won awards which
gave them early funding. Thanks to the support
they received from UCL, all three are now thriving.
The coffee waste recycling company bio-bean
(www.bio-bean.com) employs 20 people and
has a production plant in Cambridgeshire. Its
founder Arthur Kay, who studied architecture
at UCL, was recently named the Guardian’s
sustainable business leader of 2015 and, at 24,
was the youngest person to receive this award.
Launched after its UCL student founder Sally
Broom had an unpleasant experience with border
guards in Cambodia, travel website Tripbod
(www.tripbod.com) was named by the Times as
the best new travel website in 2009. Last year,
Tripbod was bought by internet travel giant
TripAdvisor.
Showcasing cutting-edge technology is Hoxton
Analytics (www.hoxtonanalytics.com), founded
by UCL graduate Owen McCormack, which
counts retailer footfall by filming and analysing
shoppers’ shoes. The company has received
funding from an angel investor and a retail
accelerator fund. Its technology is in use in The
Dandy Lab (www.thedandylab.com), a concept
men’s retail store in Spitalfields co-founded by
UCL postgraduate Julija Bainiaksina, which
highlights top British brands, and high-end
technology including smart mannequins and
interactive display walls.
All of these businesses have been helped by
UCL Advances, the centre for entrepreneurship
at UCL, which was launched in 2007 and has
grown into one of the largest such centres running
in any university in the world. Our activities
build on a history of entrepreneurial alumni that
includes the founders of PwC, Giraffe restaurants
and polling firm YouGov. We are proud to support
Business Reporter
Like us: www.facebook.com/biznessreporter | Contact us at info@lyonsdown.co.uk
How UCL is helping
entrepreneurs
reach their goals
Timothy Barnes
Director
UCL Advances
November 2015
an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph
Your
to
chance te
nomina
11
Who will be the inaugural winner
of the UCL/Business Reporter
Medal for Entrepreneurship?
Do you know someone who’s hidden their light under a bushel and who you
think deserves recognition? Or a major public business figure who is more
than just a celebrity but has made a real difference? Whoever they are,
if you think they should be considered, please fill in the online form at
www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise/medal-for-entrepreneurship. You can also find
a link on the Business Reporter website at www.business-reporter.co.uk.
Everyone who submits a nomination will be invited to the event.
not just budding student entrepreneurs but also
existing small and medium businesses that
started outside of the university and are seeking
to grow. We help anyone who wants to learn
about, start or grow a business.
Last year, UCL was ranked number one in the
country for overall research power in the
government’s Research Excellence Framework
and has been in the top ten universities in the
world in each of the last five years, according to
the QS World University Rankings. This gives
us a phenomenal base of know-how that we can
draw on when seeking new business ideas or
expertise to help existing businesses. Working
with entrepreneurs helps inform our research
and teaching, and becomes a virtuous circle of
activity as we seek to maximise the benefits we
offer to society and the economy.
The UK is one of the best places in the world
to set up a business. There is a plethora of support
available, increasingly from universities, whose
attitude towards entrepreneurship has improved
significantly in recent years.
UCL has led the way in supporting small
businesses and start-ups, through our partnerships
with major corporations, such as Santander
and Intel, as well as offering in-house support,
training and funding. Over the last eight years,
we have supported nearly 500 student business
concepts take shape. Each year we work with
more than 250 external small businesses through
training and advice and provide 2,500 places on
our programmes.
Our support is wide-ranging. UCL has a
“hatchery” which provides free office space in
central London to students while they are working
on their business idea. It is expanding and soon
should be able to support around 100 students.
The university is also involved in two innovation
centres in central London where small businesses
can work on projects and receive support from
UCL’s enterprise services.
The first innovation centre to open was
IDEALondon, a joint venture with DC Thomson
and Cisco based in Tech City in Shoreditch.
IDEALondon was opened by Prime Minister
David Cameron in 2013 and is home to a clutch
of exciting tech start-ups, including Hoxton
Analytics. The second centre, BASE KX, is at
King’s Cross and opened this summer to support
new c reat ive a nd pro duc t
businesses. It is supported by the
London Borough of Camden
and can support up to 100
ventures at any one time.
We believe entrepreneurship
should start as young as
possible. Five years ago, we
launched Citrus Saturday
(ww w.citrussaturday.org),
Above: UCL’s
main entrance;
Below: David
Cameron opens
the IDEALondon
centre in 2013
which gives schoolchildren the chance to
experience entrepreneurship. Our Citrus Saturday
toolkit equips young people with the skills to
start their own business and make a future for
themselves. Participants create a lemonade
product, brand it and sell it to the public, then
keep the profits. More than 1,500 schoolchildren
have taken part in the scheme, which has
expanded to 15 countries in Europe and Africa.
This is part of how we are giving back.
Entrepreneurship is no longer an
activity for the few, but a mainstream
choice for many young people
looking for fulfilling careers
and those wanting to take on
the challenges of solving the
biggest problems the world
faces. UCL is here to help all of
t hose indiv iduals reach
their goals.
The criteria for nominations are:
•S
uccess achieved from entrepreneurial activities. We are looking for
someone who has founded and sustained a successful business. Similarly,
a candidate who founded a venture capital firm which invested in, and
helped grow, multiple start-ups, would also be suitable for consideration.
• “ Giving Back”. Candidates must show that they have applied their business
skills for the benefit of others. This could include those who apply venture
capital investment principles to their charitable giving, as well as people
who have been actively involved in educating or funding the teaching of
entrepreneurship and enterprise. But the important element is that they
have done more to be involved than acting only as a funder.
•U
K orientated. The candidate must be active in the UK. They do not need
to be of British origin, or live here, but their key business operations and
“giving back” activities must be in the UK.
•C
areer Success. The candidate must have already achieved significant
success in their entrepreneurial career with their financial achievement
already secured.
Nominations close next Friday, November 20 2015
Photo: DAVID ILIFF. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0
Wanted:
November 2015