King's College London

The Mayor of London is looking to students or recent graduates from a London university for business ideas to improve London.

The Mayor’s Entrepreneur competition offers three prizes of £20,000 each for ideas focused on one of the three awards in the Environment, Tech and the Creative Industries sectors.

Whether you enter as an individual or part of a group, benefits include the chance to:

• improve your skills and future employability
• get free mentoring and workshops from business experts
• pitch your ideas Dragons' Den style at City Hall
• win one of three £20,000 prize funds to bring your idea to life

The 15 selected finalists will pitch their ideas to a panel of celebrity judges, after which the winners for each award will be announced.

Ideas are submitted online and budding entrepreneurs are asked questions such as ‘how would you describe your idea to grandparents?’ and ‘how will the idea make money?’

The Mayor’s office are running two pre-application workshops on 12 December 2018 and 23 January 2019 covering everything from networking skills, to developing and pitching ideas and advice from past winners and finalists, and if you’re looking for inspiration, the Mayor’s office have identified some challenges facing London in each of the three awards.

Key dates

Applications close midnight 17 February 2019

Applicant training 26 and 28 February 2019

Semi-final round 15 March 2019

Finalist training 22 March 2019

Success stories

In 2018, Aaron and Olivia from Imperial College London, won the Mayor's Entrepreneur with their fully flushable and biodegradable sanitary pads, WithLula. In a bid to combat the environmental impact of disposable sanitary products, the team has engineered a material that is stable during use at body temperature, but that disintegrates upon contact with cool water, allowing them to be flushed down the toilet safely.

How to apply

Find out more information on the Mayor of London website here