Wednesday 27 April saw the return of our annual Enterprise Competition, suspended in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic given it would not be the same experience if held online. The panel of judges heard presentations from six teams, lasting ten minutes each, followed by an opportunity for questions. Entrants included: an innovative health website; a new system for controlling lasers; an app to give back control to users of social media feeds; a cybersecurity device for manufacturing; an innovative software to improve triage in accident and emergency; and software for assessing the effective working within entrepreneurial teams.

We are delighted to announce that the winners of the main prize were Entrepreneurial Team Analytics, a team led by Churchill PhD student Eva Benyei (G20). Their product is an innovative platform for use by VC and investors to assess accurately team dynamics to predict success of entrepreneurial teams. 

Eva commented:

‘The Churchill Enterprise Competition was the first of its kind that we have entered with ETA Technologies, and it was a highly valuable experience for the team. Just before the presentation, we were chatting and all of us agreed that independently from the result we are already winners as the mentoring sessions gave so much to the project.  

When we heard our name to be announced as the winner, we needed a few seconds for it to sink in. It is a great honour and a huge motivation to go forward with ETA Technologies.’

We are grateful for the generous support of the Federation of Shenzhen Chambers of commerce for the main prize of £1,000 to help the winning team realise the potential of their idea. Whitesoma, who are creating an app to control the social media feed information on websites and mobile devices, won the £250 prize for the more innovative technological idea, courtesy of Cyberhive.

The Chair of the judging panel for the 2022 Churchill Enterprise Competition, Professor Tim Minshall, commented:

‘The quality of the ideas presented by the shortlisted teams was outstanding.  All of them had identified opportunities that have the potential to deliver substantial economic and social impact, communicated their visions extremely well, and demonstrated real commitment to taking these ideas forward. We wish all the teams good luck, and look forward to helping them develop their ideas further.’

We are very grateful to our sponsors, the Federation of Shenzhen Chambers of Commerce and Cyberhive, and also to our alumni mentors/judges: Harry Bullivant (U06), Vik Chadha (U08), Dr Philip Hilton (U67), Julie Kilcoyne (U&G90), Alan Platt (U93).