Category / Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth

Catherine Philip hosts latest Tenant Business Surgery

The Centre for Entrepreneurship (CfE) was delighted to welcome Catherine Philip of Wessex Business Focus Ltd to the Incubator to host our latest Business Surgery.

The CfE Business Surgeries are run on a regular basis and provide a fantastic opportunity for early stage businesses to ask questions and pick the brains of experienced professionals and entrepreneurs. They are aimed at both CfE tenants and also BU students running businesses.

Catherine is a Chartered Tax Adviser and has recently moved from a top 20 accountancy practice to her present role as innovation broker and freelance tax adviser. “Having worked with a variety of SME’s”, says Catherine, “I have become increasingly aware that many business owners do not have sufficient time or other resources to implement their business plans. I especially enjoy working alongside my clients to help them take their business plans forward: my analytical, numerical and research skills enable me to offer bespoke, pragmatic solutions to their business challenges.”

Previous Business Surgeries have been hosted by Gary Seneviratne, (Adido), Peter Czapp, (The Wow Company), and Ewan King, (Content is King).

Robin Humphreyies, Managing Director of games developers, Static Games Ltd (www.static-games.co.uk), and current BU student, agreed the discussion ‘was very useful’ and he was looking forward to having the opportunity to meet with Catherine again in the near future.

Kaisa Kangro, Managing Director of el Rhey Ltd, (www.elrhey.com), specialist designers of children’s rainwear, said, ‘the meeting with Catherine was very insightful’, and added, ‘it is great that an expert is sharing her knowledge and time with new start-ups like us; this can make a big difference and help us develop our business further.’ Kaisa also commented that, ‘meeting people and making professional contacts is relevant for any new business, and the Centre for Entrepreneurship has been very helpful in that area.’

The Centre for Entrepreneurship is immensely grateful to Catherine for her time and expertise today and for her continuing support of the CfE and its businesses within the Incubator.

The next Surgery will be held on the 5th September and be hosted by Matt Hawkins, founder and MD of C4L. To find out more about the surgeries please contact Nikki Gloyns at ngloyns@bournemouth.ac.uk

CfE Welcomes a New Entrepreneur in Residence

The BU Centre for Entrepreneurship is delighted to welcome Arabella Lewis-Smith to our cohort of Entrepreneurs in Residence.

Jointly founding the Salad graphic design and digital consultancy in 2001 – aged 26 and with a background in fashion – Bella is living proof that, starting with just passion and a creative spark, anything is possible. The classic entrepreneurial success story, Salad has grown from humble beginnings to the award-winning agency it is today, with a team of 13 and working with the likes of Hall & Woodhouse, Olives et Al, Salomon and the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. Alongside Salad, Bella was instrumental in the launch in 2007 of another venture, Pasture Naturals – which has since shown significant growth and established itself in the luxury washroom product market.

That both businesses have flourished despite a lack of direct experience of either sector speaks volumes for the power of intuition, enthusiasm and sheer hard graft. Above all, though, Bella is convinced that the most important ingredient is people, “I love what I do… the secret has been finding – and putting faith in – lovely, talented people who share that passion. In the early years of Salad I tried so hard to be corporate, slick, polished…. basically, someone I’m not. When I relaxed and started simply being me everything just clicked.”

Whilst for Bella the commercial objective is success – it will never be success at any cost. As an agency, Salad has never espoused a late night working culture – and Bella’s firm in her belief that, in order to do their jobs to the best of their ability, people need to be happy, to be treated fairly… and to have fun.

It’s a message with which Bella hopes to inspire others – and a key reason why we’re so excited she has accepted our invitation to participate in Entrepreneurs in Residence scheme.

For more information about Salad follow www.saladcreative.com To see the profiles of all our Entrepreneurs in Residence please click on www.bucfe.com/entrepreneurs/

Creative England Teams up with Playstation on Accelerator Programme

Funding opportunities

 

As part of its ongoing support for the games industry in England, Creative England’s  GamesLab Campus programme will invest a total of £250,000 into five Games companies (£50,000 each) to support the development of new and innovative entertainment experiences on PlayStation®3, PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®Vita.

This package of investment will be complemented by a bespoke programme of business support and other technical and fringe benefits including the provision of PS3, PS4 & PS Vita Dev Kits1.

This announcement was made earlier this week at the Develop Conference 2014 , For more information, including how to apply, will be available shortly on our Games section Follow GamesLab on Twitter at @CEGameslab.

Mentoring support available for emergent or established creative companies

Can you answer yes to all these questions or work with a company that can?

  • Are you a  registered company in the UK
  • Have you been trading for a minimum of three years
  • Working within one or more of these sectors – advertising, film, TV, digital media
  • Have a turnover of £1m.

Ideally your company or the business you are working within will be in the following position:

  • Have a scalable business model
  • Seeking to reach the next stage of development
  • Looking to expand a product or service range; expand into new markets nationally or internationally; develop IP
  • Have a good leadership team in place.

The above are desirable criteria. If the £1m turnover is not met but there are ambitions to grow and expand the business, you can still apply as there will be other opportunities in the future. The next round starts in September 2014.

So if you are or you know an ambitious creative company with an appetite for growth and would like practical advice on overcoming the challenges of growing a creative business – why not apply for a mentor?

Click here to  find out more  

If you are interested and meet the criteria, click here for more information  or if you want to find out more details, email NESTA at cbmn@nesta.org.uk or call 020 7438 2635.

To find out more about NESTA click here

‘Intelligences’ theme of PR conference

BU research, Uncategorized

Dr David MacQueen and Prof Tom Watson of The Media School both chaired panels and presented papers at the PR Meeting #4 conference in Barcelona last week.

The conference, which features research on critical approaches to public relations and strategic communication, had a focus on ‘intelligences’ this year.

Dr McQueen chaired a session which included fellow speakers from the the US, Spain and New Zealand. His paper, jointly authored with Graeme Baxter of Robert Gordon University, considered community resistance to corporate power in Scotland and Ireland.

Prof Watson presented a critical review of repetitive research issues in PR, in a session which also included speakers from Australia and Sweden. On the final afternoon of the conference he was a panel speaker on academic writing and publishing.

“This conference is a top event as it has broad international participation and always pushes into new research territory,” said Prof Watson. “This year, it was built around Howard Gardners’s work on intelligences, which brought forward aspects such as competitive, professional, spiritual, digital, emotional, dialogic, wicked and feminist intelligences.”

(L-R) PR Meeting # organisers Prof Jordi Xifra (Pompeu Fabra) and Prof David McKie (Wakato) with Prof Tom Watson

BUCfE Connects with Gaming Students at FODI

Members of the CfE team were delighted to connect with Gaming and Music final year students at the FODI event to explain upcoming proposed entrepreneurial programmes.

Speaking during Glyn Hadley’s and Christos Gatzidis’ lectures, the Student Entrepreneurship Manager had the opportunity to give a high level overview of the Bournemouth University Graduate Incubator’s offerings including:

  • Hackathon
  • Bootcamp
  • Competition
  • 12 months incubation space

The Business Ideas Hackathon was the main focus of the talk.  The Hackathon will be a 36-hour business idea hack to identify and develop out innovative potential high growth businesses.  Running in the Autumn semester 2014, the Hackathon will enable students to devise and code a new business from the ground up and provide an environment to test out the proposed business model.  Students from SciTech will team up with students from HSC, Media, Tourism and Business, for instance, to code a solution to a real-world problem or to scope out a potential fast-growing business.   The focus is on innovation, creativity and on high growth with fusion of different disciplines being key to success.  Whilst this initial presentation was to SciTech, students from any disciplines are invited to apply and presentations will be given to all schools in September.   Bournemouth University students about to enter their final year are invited to register their interest at this stage at our Hackathon page.

Designed to hone and refine business ideas, the Bootcamp will be for participants of the business idea hackathon or those who already know what business they want to do.  The Bootcamp will enable participants to build out their business plans and to start to develop their offering and their pitch.

The Bootcamp feeds into the Business Idea Competition:  a Dragon’s Den-style event where businesses pitch to win 12 month’s free incubator space and business support at the Centre for Entrepreneurship.

SciTech students had left their industry placements for the day to attend the FODI event, with some of the students showcasing their work to the general public.  During the event, BUCfE incubator business Static Games were able to feature their new game, Mendel’s Farm, and sign up beta testers for their imminent release.

The CfE team are immensely grateful to Glyn Hadley and Christos Gatzidis for allowing us some time to present to their students.

Dorset Business Awards 2014 Launch

BU research

The Centre for Entrepreneurship is delighted to be attending the launch of the Dorset Business Awards 2014. Sponsoring the Entrepreneur of the Year Award again this year, Bournemouth University is is keen to showcase and recognise local entrepreneurs who have made an economic or social impact in the region.

The DBA launch is being held at Parley Manor and Mark Painter, Dr Lois Farquharson, Melissa Carr, Dr Chris Chapleo and Nikki Gloyns are amongst the attendees representing the University.

The Dorset Business Awards are run by Dorset Chamber of Commerce and Industy (DCCI) and award categories have included an Apprenticeship Training Award, Bournemouth University’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Dorset Tourism Award and the Barclays Business Woman of the Year Award.  This year awards include:

  • Entrepreneur of the Year
  • Business Growth Award
  • Excellence in Innovation Award
  • Dorset Export Award

The awards celebrate local achievement and success in the various categories and are an excellent way for local businesses who enter to gain publicity and recognition in addition to being able to showcase their products or services to a wider audience.    Winners are also able to display the DBA KiteMark on their letterheads and literature.

The Dorset Business Awards 2014 Competition opens on Monday 23rd June and runs until 12th September.  Winners are announced in November at the Dorset Business Awards Gala Dinner.   Further information is available from the Dorset Business Awards website.

Dorset Business Awards 2014

Ferndown & Uddens Business Improvement District collaborates with a multi-disciplinary team from BU

BU research, Uncategorized

The Business Improvement District (BID) yesterday hosted their first breakfast meeting on business continuity and information assurance.

Staff from the Business School, The Disaster Management Centre and the Cyber Security Unit presented a knowledgeable insight to identify collective responsibilities of businesses within the district, giving examples where one business problem may affect other enterprises across the estate. The Dorset Fire & Rescue Service and Dorset Police further supported BU’s representations concerning crisis management; business resilience; disaster recovery and cybercrime. In addition, A&T Insurance Group provided a comprehensive study on insuring business resilience.

BUCSU introduced the availability of TSB Innovation Vouchers to meet the recently published ‘Cyber Essentials’ issued by the Information Commissioners Office.

Fusion – Establishment of research collaboration, student and staff exchanges with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

 My application to the Fusion Investment Fund (FIF) has been successful.  The funds will be used to establish research collaboration, student and staff exchanges with the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa. I will be travelling to the UKZN during Easter this month for an exploratory visit. While at UKZN, I will present a paper to the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance. This will be followed by a series of meetings with students and staff. On my return, I will apply to Bournemouth University to put in place the three relationships.

 A successful establishment of the three aforesaid relationships will have many enormous benefits to the students and staff of BU and UKZN. For example, students should benefit culturally in terms of spending sometime in South Africa and UK respectively due to differences in the two countries’ cultures. In addition to cultural awareness, the staff exchange will benefit the staff involved through observing how lecturers in a different country deliver lectures. Apart from co-authoring academic journal articles, research collaboration between BU and UKZN staff should be beneficial where the research call (e.g. Horizon 2020) requires that researchers from Europe collaborate with a partner from South Africa.

 At an institution level, the relationships should help BU in two main ways. Firstly, student exchange should increase awareness of BU in Africa which may translate into increase in percentage of African students enrolled at BU. Increasing the percentage of students from Africa is important for BU because currently less than 4% of our students are from Africa compared to 8% UK universities average. Secondly, the increase in student population from Africa will also help BU achieve the strategic plan objective of increasing overseas students’ recruitment by 15% by 2015.

 UKNZ is the third largest university in South Africa and a very good university and also shares great similarities in university teaching, research and enterprise activities with those of the Business School, School of Tourism, Design, Engineering and Computing, School of Health and Social Care. Further information about the university can be found on: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/.

 Dr Ven Tauringana, Associate Professor of Accounting – The Business School

CfE Upcoming Event: Moov2 with the CIM

BU research, Training

Date: Tuesday 8 April 2014

Time: Arrival from 6pm for a 6:30pm start until approx 8pm

Location: EBC

We would like to invite you to join us at our latest CIM event.  Dan Thomas, of Moov2 will be demonstrating, in his straight-talking (and completely non-geeky) style, how businesses and the agencies they work with can successfully make and exploit their data, adding real value to the bottom line.

To book please visit: http://bit.ly/1eK1d3a

Fusion Investment Fund – BU research and education visit in Mexico

BU research, Fusion

Dr Christos Apostolakis from the Business School has been awarded Fusion Investment Fund to establish working relationships with Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Tecnologico de Monterrey), Mexico in terms of research and education. Christos has accepted an invitation by the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera at Tec de Monterrey and he will travel to Monterrey on the 5th April 2014 for a week’s visit to engaging in a series of intellectual and networking activities.

During his 5 working-day visit, Christos plans to:

  • Give a guest lecture about Bournemouth University Business School (vision; goals; history; future plans; suggestions for collaboration with Tec de Monterrey and EGADE Business School);
  • Give a presentation about his research work on social entrepreneurship expanding on the significant role of entrepreneurship in biotechnology the main research theme of the host research centre;
  • Attend student classes on Entrepreneurship and, Strategy;
  • Collect material and other secondary data about entrepreneurship activities run or supported by the host research centre;
  • Visit wherever possible local businesses that promote entrepreneurship in biotechnology (in collaboration with the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera);
  • Do networking with colleagues who work for EGADE Business School and the Global Research Chair in Entrepreneurship Eugenio Garza-Laguera;
  • Collaborate in expanding the paper the abstract of which has already been accepted for the ECIE 2014 conference with Dr Marcia Villasana Campos.

It is envisaged that this visit can initiate long term collaboration between the two universities such as staff and student exchange, joint PhD supervision and, student recruitment with a focus on entrepreneurship (and not only). The project contributes to both research and education of the Fusion concept as it aims to develop gradually a strategic partner for BU’s internationalisation process.

Tecnológico de Monterrey is one of the largest private multi-campus universities in Latin America, with over 90,000 students. Based in Monterrey, Mexico the University has 31 campuses in 25 cities throughout the country. It has one of the top graduate business schools in the region and it is well-known for having a large number of students studying abroad every year.

For more information, please contact Dr Christos Apostolakis (capostolakis@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Website & BRIAN Training Sessions

BU research, Guidance, Research news, Research themes, Training

Screen shot of new website

Due to popular demand we are hosting  training sessions for the new research webpages together with BRIAN training.

These sessions are open to all BU academic staff, post graduate research students and those supporting researchers in their communications activity.

During the session you will learn the following:

Research Webpages

  • Why BU has new research webpages
  • How you can upload content to the website
  • How the site can be used most effectively to maximise exposure of BU research.

BRIAN

  • What is BRIAN and why is it important
  • How to set up and maintain your BRIAN profile
  • How to ensure your details are correct
  • How to request a photo is uploaded
  • How BRIAN links to your external staff profile

To book on one of the following sessions please use the links below…

Thursday 27th March 2pm in P421 Poole House, Talbot Campus

Thursday 17th April 2pm in P421 Poole House, Talbot Campus

We hope to follow these with a session at the Lansdowne Campus (room pending). If you would be interested in a Lansdowne session or you have any queries, please  email Shelly Maskell on smaskell@bournemouth.ac.uk

2014 sees a surge in engagement with eBU

BU research, PG research, Publishing, Research news

Through immediate internal publication and open peer review, eBU is ideally placed to support the developmental needs of authors at any career stage, and I’m pleased to say that, so far, the 2014 issue has seen a levels of engagement from across the career spectrum. eBU has had two working paper submissions so far in 2014 (and there are plenty more in the archived 2013 issue!).

Firstly, under the Lifelong Health and Wellbeing theme, Sheetal Sharma (HSC) and colleagues submitted a paper titled Eliciting Nepali women’s views on childbirth and the newborn. A full text file of this paper has been openly reviewed and can be viewed here – http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/17.  I understand Sheetal has just submitted this paper to an external journal, so best of luck and we await with great excitement to hear the outcome!

Secondly, under the Education, Learning and Practice theme, Jonathan Williams (again HSC) has submitted a paper titled Is student knowledge of anatomy affected by a Problem-Based Learning approach? A full text file of this paper can be read here – http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/24.

eBU was also delighted to be able to support outputs from the 2014 PGR conference, and a number of PGRs have decided to use eBU to showcase their work. Why not take a look at the following abstracts and posters:

Business, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth

Alice Bonasio – PGR Conf 2014 Abstract: Customer Engagement Through Crowd-Funding and Social Media: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/21

Lifelong Health and Wellbeing

Ben Hicks – PGR Conf 2014 Abstract: Using commercial computer game technology to benefit men with dementia residing in rural areas of Dorset: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/19

Sheetal Sharma – PGR Conf 2014 Abstract: Pregnant and ‘dirty’ for 40 days: A qualitative study of childbirth practice, beliefs and myths in Nepal: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/20

Jonny Branney – PGR Conf 2014 Abstract: Is spinal manipulation associated with changes in cervical inter-vertebral motion?: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/23

Research Methods and Practice

Jenny Roddis – PGR Conf 2014 Poster: Experience of interviewing: face-to-face vs. telephone: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/22

Technology & Design

Manuel Salvador – PGR Conf 2014 Poster: Automating Data Pre-processing for Online and Dynamic Processes in the Chemical Industry: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/18