Business Plan competition prize announced

The winning business case plan has been chosen by the Business School following the first year of the new Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship flagship course.

A team of MBA students recently won a cash prize of £10,000 from the Business School for a business plan they developed on the Imperial MBA flagship course, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Design (IED).

Over six months the team of six MBAs developed an idea which was initially provided by Cancer Research UK, based on the concept of ‘tribal fundraising'. It is a new approach to fundraising that considers tapping into competitiveness to increase charitable giving - especially amongst men who are not typically substantial donors.

The idea, called Play Poker, Beat Cancer, was one of 33 projects entering the IED process sixth months ago. It will bring together existing online gaming companies around a televised global tournament, with significant contributions being made toward Cancer Research UK. The team, led in the business plan competition by Piers Kotting, were assigned the project and through four mentoring workshops and hours of group work they developed the idea into an investable business plan.

"It's been fascinating to work with a major charity like Cancer Research UK," said Piers, "and an excellent way of reinforcing the MBA's theoretical learning. We've come out of [the process] with a budding business, so we are feeling very positive toward the whole experience at the moment!"

Throughout the project, Cancer Research UK as ‘owners' of the idea were invited to attend the workshops to take part in the process, ensuring the team was working within realistic boundaries and to the original brief.

Clare Cotton from Cancer Research UK's Innovation team said: "We've been delighted in how the team have translated a theoretical and broad concept into a potentially viable business model and would definitely like to brief another IED team on a new challenge next year. The sheer work, drive and brainpower has been superb and we are extremely grateful to all the team."

Four other projects were short-listed for the final, competition phase of IED. Presentations on all these business cases were given to an audience of five, experienced investors from leading venture capital firms. They considered each plan based on three criteria: whether the plan identified a market opportunity that could realistically be met; whether the team offered a competitive advantage, should the plan become a business and simply, whether the investors would be prepared to invest in that company.

Professor Bart Clarysse, head of the Entrepreneurship Hub and course leader for IED has overseen the design of the new course and presented at the award ceremony.
"Many schools have competitions but this is the first to systematically integrate the expertise of designers, engineers and business school students," he said. "An entrepreneurial education has to get students learning through experience - once they have the theoretical grounding.

"We're offering relevant, applied teaching built on foundations of world-class research and the experience of Entrepreneurship Hub team. That's why all of the short-listed plans are solid ideas for real customers with defined and understood needs."

Professor David Gann, head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Europe's leading research group in this field, also spoke at the presentation of the cash prize. He said:

"It's heartening to see all the companies in the final are offering services. Business plan competitions can too easily become focused just on products and that's a shame. The UK economy is dominated by services today and this will continue if we are to remain internationally competitive."

The team are currently considering how to best invest the prize money. They are planning to enter the company into Design London's incubator, an early-stage start-up business scheme linked to the business school, and to attend a forthcoming matchmaking event where they hope to find a designer to assist in the service design aspects needed to further refine the business plan.

- ends -