Back-to-Back Victory: Our students win Mayor's Entrepreneur Competition 2023

Two teams at the Dyson School of Design Engineering clinched the top prize at the Mayor's Entrepreneur Competition for the second consecutive year.

The Design Engineering department at Imperial College London proudly accounted for 9 out of the 20 finalists in the esteemed Mayor's Entrepreneur Competition 2023, underscoring the remarkable calibre of talent within their ranks. Mentis Recruitment, founded by Design Engineering undergraduate students won the technology category, and Guerrilla, designed by Innovation Design Engineering postgraduate students won the environmental category.

Mentis Recruitment, founded during the Enterprise Roll Out module led by Senior Lecturer Dr Pelin Demirel, aims to match job seekers with companies that align with their values and career goals. The team recognised a need for an unbiased recruitment system that would give candidates an equal chance of success. Students Robert Field, Esther Del Portillo, Itziar de Pedro Sarasola, Leila Al-Azzawi, and Sean Wisskirchen, impressed judges with their innovative approach to personalised recruitment.

Guerrilla's drainage system on the other hand is a game-changer in the fight against pollution in cities. The device aims to capture particulate pollution that would otherwise be washed into the ocean due to rainfall in cities, significantly reducing local turbidity of the Thames. This could have a huge impact on the environment and the health of local communities. Guerrilla was designed by students Summer Chen, Hunaid Nagaria, Adhesh Shenoy, and Henry Parkin as a part of the Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) course group project, under the guidance of course tutors Audrey Gaulard and Dr Elena Dieckmann.

Other Dyson School of Design Engineering students and alumni finalists in the prize included:

Tech finalists
Spatial by Steph Jump
Et al. by Marie van der Klink, Mustafa Al Quraishi, Carine Fattal, Paula C., Fernanda Espinoza

Health finalists
Pleural by Yihan Dong, Fergus Laidlaw, Daniel Hale, William Eliot
BeyondHearing by Alumni Chunte Ho

Environment finalists
Carbon Cell by Elizabeth Lee, Ori Blich, Eden Harrison, Juan Ignacio Rion
Micro Sentry by Nirmal Thomas, Linxi Cao, Grace Duan, Yiran Jia

Creative industries finalist
Fibe by Idan Gal-Shohet, David Prior Hope, Premal Gadhia, Hazel Gonda

IDE finalists in the Mayor's Entrepreneur Competition 2023

I would like to express my gratitude to the team at Mayors for an incredible event, as well thank Pelin Demirel and the rest of the Design Engineering team for helping us make Mentis a reality - over 20 companies have already registered interest in our business! Itziar de Pedro Sarasola Design Engineering MEng

Last year, the winning idea was Team Repair, an initiative that empowers children with the skills and tools to repair their broken gadgets, designed to teach them key scientific knowledge and fixing skills. By encouraging children to fix their devices instead of simply throwing them away, Team Repair is helping to create and teach children a more sustainable future and inspire them to get into STEM (science, technology, engineering and medicine). Team Repair was co-founded by Design Engineering students Megan Hale, Anais Engelmann, Oliver Colebourne, Patrick McGuckian and Oscar Jones.   

The Dyson School community is incredibly proud of both teams and their accomplishments. With their new funding and recognition from the Mayor's Entrepreneur competition, Mentis Recruitment and Guerrilla are poised for continued success and growth in their respective industries.