news & views

In January 2019 over 60 students at the University of Greenwich entered the main Enterprise Challenge Competition, with seven of our experienced mentors helping seven of these students develop their business ideas in order to pitch at semi-final and final stage in front of a panel of judges. We are pleased to say that 3 of the 7 reached the final 10 in Greenwich and 2 of them won prizes out of the 5 available, as follows:

The winners of the Social Category Award were students Don Munasinghe and Chathunda Hewage of the company Nephthys, who were both mentored by the Marketors’ Richard Mayer. Nephthys provide innovative products for customers, the first of which is a smart stick possibly to replace guide dogs for visually impaired people. 

The Engineers in Business Winners were students Amira Eltokhy and Mohamed Said of the company Rapid Bio-Labs. They were mentored by the Marketors’ Jonathan Williams, who achieved this feat despite living and working in Sydney, Australia! Rapid Bio-Labs have developed quick, accurate, cost-effective and accessible software to deliver automated cell counting services using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Amira was very grateful for Jonathan’s help and support: “He was and still is very supportive. He gave my team and me all the time and information we asked for and also guided us toward greater professionalism in marketing and the market research process. He is always there for me via Skype and emails. I learned a lot from him. I am so grateful to know such an amazing and supportive personality.”

The bad luck Award would surely have gone to Alan Wong, who was just starting to present his proposal for an indie board game via his company, Spinning Cog Games at the Finals event, but then was alarmed to realise the organisers had loaded the wrong presentation up for him and the rules did not allow for a reload. He carried on bravely. The Marketors’ Roger Harrop had done a great job in mentoring him through to the Final, so it was a disappointing end to a lot of hard work.

The overall winner went to La Leche, a new fashion brand creating optic fibre swim and party wear for gay men.

This is the first running of this Greenwich-Marketors initiative, which followed an approach to the University of Greenwich in summer 2018 by the Chair of the Marketors’ Mentoring Programme, Peter Rosenvinge. Both sides feel the relationship has got off to a good start and plan to run it for a second year from January to March 2020. If anyone is interested in being a Mentor on this or our wider programme of mentoring (less intensive but over a flexible, longer period) please contact Peter at p-rosenvinge@sky.com or ring him on 07905 903403.

Please also see https://www.marketors.org/About-Us/Committees/Professional-Mentoring-Programme