News archive 2010

Lion’s Den winners announced

24 Mar 2010, PR 63/10

Ten King’s staff and students benefited from a total of £10,000 prize money and seed funding after demonstrating a high level of commercial awareness and entrepreneurial spirit at the finals of the King’s College London Graduate Business Plan Competition yesterday evening.

The competition recognises King’s staff and student entrepreneurs who have successfully participated in a six-month business training programme and received alumni mentoring to develop a business idea and business plan and go on to make a successful pitch to a panel of real investors.

The winner of the Lion’s Den Idea Prize of £2,000 was an interdisciplinary team of masters students made up of Adebusuyi Adeyemi, MSc Medicine, Science & Society, Mathilde Gauvain, MA Medieval History and Liliya Smialkova MSc Environment & Development. Good Food aims to provide top quality local and seasonal food to London schools.

Luke Blaxhill, Phd History & Digital Humanities and Shuzhi Zhou, PhD Neuroscience, won the King’s College London Graduate School and development money totalling £6,000 for GradFunding a business idea based on their own experience of winning grants from the voluntary sector. GradFunding provides products and services such as ‘The Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding’ that help students gain funding.

Inspired by their own experience as clinical researchers and physiotherapists Massimo Barcellona, Phd Candidate, and Jeroen Bergmann, Post Doctoral Researcher, both from Applied Biomedical Research, together with Jason Mellad, Post Doctoral Researcher, Cardiology Division, set up B-stable and developed the B-Walker, a novel innovative hands free walking aid.  B-stable was awarded £2,000 in seed funding.

Felipe Lopes and Joana Lobo Pereira Vicente, both PhD candidates in Forensic Science & Drug Monitoring won the ‘Best Pitch’ trophy for making a fantastic pitch about Iluminus, their business idea to develop a new beauty product.

A really positive impact

Dr Fiona Denney, from King’s College London Graduate School which has supported the Lion’s Den since its inception three years ago, commented: ‘Lion’s Den is having a really positive impact on entrepeneurial learning at King’s. We are delighted to see such talented staff and students developing venturing, commercial and business skills that will enhance their future career opportunites.’

Dave Ganly, from Notion Learning, winners in 2008-9, who was on the judging panel for the ‘Best Real Idea’ in 2009-10 said: ‘We hope that this year’s winners will follow in our footsteps - Dimitrios Mistriotis and I went on to set up Notion Learning (http://www.notionlearning.com/) after winning Lion’s Den, won free office space in a local incubator in the Southwark Tycoon Boot camp Competition and also secured angel investment along the way. We’ll be launching into beta within the next six weeks.’

Dr Alison Campbell, who heads King’s College London Business, said: ‘We are delighted to see the spirit of enterprise thriving at King’s. It’s great to help to seed ideas for new business ventures and to be able to support relevant training.’

The competition has run with sponsorship from King’s Business, King’s Graduate School and the generous support of King’s Alumni and Rawlinson & Hunter, Chartered Accountants.

[Photography by David Tett]

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 Graduate School
King’s College Graduate School was established in 2006 to encourage the best possible experience for the 2000 PhD students and 5500 Masters students currently studying at the College. It also seeks to ensure that King’s attracts, teaches and supports a growing share of the world’s best postgraduates. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/graduate/school/

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 nearly 23,000 students (of whom more than 8,600 are graduate students) from nearly 140 countries, and some 5,500 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
Public Relations Department
Email: pr@kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7848 3202

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