News archive 2009

Business plan competition launched

23 Oct 2009, PR 221/09

King's graduates and post doctoral researchers will develop business and commercial awareness and have the chance to win prizes with a total of value of £10,000 if they enter the Lion’s Den business plan competition. Launched this week, the competition is a joint venture between King's Business and King's Graduate School.



Alison Campbell, Managing Director of King's Business comments: ‘This competition equips entrepreneurially minded early career researchers and postgraduate students with the skills they need to think outside the box and to become the innovators of the future – whether at King’s or more widely in society. Last year we had some fantastic entries that ranged from medical diagnostics through to exciting new social businesses and I’m expecting to see fresh ideas and dynamic teams again this year.’
 
The Business Plan Competition was launched at an event which included a panel made up of successful King’s entrepreneurs, including recent alumni who have set up businesses. The panel, who shared their experience of starting up a business and answered questions from the audience, included: David Ganly & Dimitris Mistriotis, Notion Learning, winners of 2008-9 King’s College London Graduate School Prize; Yiwen Liu & Alexander Kapustin, Indica, winners of 2008-9 King’s College London Commercialisation Prize; Carl Pihl, CEO, Student Box Ltd; and Zain Jaffer, Commercial Director at Media Roots Ltd.
 
Transferable skills

The competition is open to postdoctoral research staff, PhDs and Masters' students in all Schools of the College. Those who enter will benefit from a breadth of training including sessions in commercial and marketing skills and will receive mentoring from an elite group of King’s Alumni. This will culminate in teams preparing, and pitching, a high quality business plan. The transferable skills gained will be valuable in today's graduate employment market. This year prize money totals £10,000, comprising three prizes of £2,000 each and an additional seed fund of £4,000.
 
Fiona Denney, Head of Graduate Development in King's College Graduate School, adds: ‘The Lion’s Den continues to go from strength to strength and provides high quality business training. The introduction of a new Alumni Business Mentoring Scheme means that we are able to offer a package of training, support and mentoring to develop researchers’ business knowledge and commercial awareness as well as enhancing vital transferable skills such as team working and communication skills. These skills make our researchers widely employable when they leave King’s.’

Rawlinson & Hunter, Chartered Accountants, Business Link, Eli Lilly, King’s Alumni Office and King’s College London Business Club provide additional support to the Lion's Den Competition.

For further information and to register for the competition contact Harriet Robinson:
email harriet.robinson@kcl.ac.uk, tel 020 7848 3196, www.kcl.ac.uk/business/bussplan.



Notes to editors

King's Business
King’s Business is responsible for driving innovation within King’s College London. A subsidiary of the College, the company develops new opportunities for engagement with business and the public sector across the whole range of academic disciplines. King’s Business works with academics to deliver research collaborations, exchange know-how, promote consultancy services, license new technologies and create new business ventures. For more information visit www.kcl.ac.uk/business

King's College London
King's College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (Times Higher Education 2009) and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has more than 21,000 students from nearly 140 countries, and more than 5,700 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.

King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.

King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit: www.kingshealthpartners.org.



Further information
Alison Denyer
Senior Communications Manager
Tel: 020 7848 3703
Email: alison.denyer@kcl.ac.uk



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