LUMS team through to final of China-UK Entrepreneurship Competition
Published 7 May 2010
Lancaster students, Shams Usmani, Juan Carlos Reyes, Manosh Krishnapillai and Sonu Bubna have won a place in the final of the China UK Entrepreneurship Competition, a competition for business plans which have the potential to bridge China and the UK in terms of product design, market or manufacture.
Eight teams competed for four places at the LUMS semi-final stage of the competition this week which was opened by Pro Vice Chancellor Bob McKinlay of Lancaster University and Consul General Ni of the Chinese Consulate at Manchester.
The three Full-time MBA students from LUMS and one from Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) lead Gaea Naturals, a company incubated within LEC. Their business plan for a biodigester which recycles waste water won the support of a panel of judges who agreed it had potential to attract significant investment. Gaea Naturals will compete against 7 other finalists at the UK final which will be hosted by University College London in July.
The winning teams and judges at the competition
The other winners of the Lancaster semi-final were Gamma from University of Cambridge, Nanolase and Inclusive Innovations.
In this fifth year of the competition more than 120 submissions were received in the UK. A short-list of 16 was drawn up for the two semi-finals at Queen's University Belfast and LUMS. The eight finalists will compete for one winning place in the UK final at UCL in July. That winner will then compete against a Chinese winner from a parallel competition in September. The competition carries cash prizes but more importantly exposure to venture capital and networking opportunities in the UK and in China.
The competition is sponsored by LUMS, UCL, Queen's University Belfast, University of York and China Innovation Development Association (CIDA).
Professor David Brown describes the competition in this short video (2 minutes 20 seconds).
