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20 Apr 2010 15:51:42
Six budding entrepreneurs from the University of Bedfordshire won the National Flux Competition 2010.
Alexia Francesca Grech, Manjunath Basapoor, Greg Dorban, Alin Dobrea, Batjargal Sugarjav and Simona Stasiulyte represented the University in the challenging three-day inter-university Flux competition in Nottingham.
They were chosen as the winning team and awarded £500 each from a competitive process involving 32 universities from across the UK.
Flux crams a whole raft of enterprise and employability challenges into less than 36 hours. Organised by the Working Knowledge Group, it is the UK’s largest annual competition promoting entrepreneurship and bridges the gap between education and the world of work.
One of the students, Greg, said: “Winning was a fantastic feeling! To come top out of over 30 leading universities is just unbelievable. Obviously we went there to win, but never expected it, especially after seeing and hearing our competitors.”
Another, Batjargal, said: “We gained a lot of business experience and confidence by attending specialised workshops, Apprentice-style meetings and Dragons’ Den-style sales pitches, and by presenting in front of around 300 people.”
Three Flux champions from the University – Arti Kumar, Paul Harrison and Ina Maslejova, coached students to develop the necessary skills to win the competition.
Paul Harrison from the Centre for Personal and Career Development, said: “Students resolved a real business challenge. They had to defend their business proposal and plan under intense cross-questioning from the panel of judges with senior managers from Experian, Backup Direct, KPMG and other big brands.”
Alin said: “Our idea revolved around the simple concept of training and providing NVQ certifications for disadvantaged people by involving them in the full production process of organic baby food.”
Alexia added: “Talking to the experts was undoubtedly the most intimidating part of the process. But it was a great privilege to have such successful people share their expertise and knowledge with us.”
The annual competition was held for the fifth time - 30,000 students have been involved in total so far.
Latest news» 2010» April» Enterprising Bedfordshire students scoop national title
