Blueprint Sponsorship
22nd Feb 2010
A competition to find stars of enterprise at Durham University has received a welcome boost after joining forces with a major regional law firm.
BHP Law has signed up as the lead sponsor of Blueprint Durham ’10, a quest to find the next generation of entrepreneurial businesses developed and run by students.
The annual Blueprint competition is run at all five of the region’s universities with the winning entries from each centre put forward to a North East regional final in October.
Matthew Rippon, a specialist in intellectual property whose expertise could help entrants who go on to launch successful businesses, said: “We are delighted to be associated with Blueprint Durham. The university has a strong record in the competition and past winners have gone on to develop highly successful businesses.
“We are very keen to support spin outs and early stage businesses developed by students to ensure that they receive the right help at the right time, which can be a crucial factor in whether their businesses are sustainable or not.”
BHP Law, which has an office in Belmont as well as Darlington, Teesside, Newcastle and Halifax, will provide funding for some of the cash prizes in the competition.
Lowry McComb, director of post-graduate training at Durham University, said more entrants than ever before had applied for this year’s competition.
“We are looking for real enterprises from under-graduates, post-graduates and alumni who have graduated in the last two years. We will be using real judging criteria with the test being ‘would the panel put their hands in their pockets and invest in these businesses?’”, he explained.
“We expect students to take the whole thing very seriously, to be professional, to meet deadlines, attend workshops and to respond quickly to communications.”
Students will be supported to develop business plans and coached in presentation skills as well as being offered mentors.
Once business plans have been submitted, 12 finalists will be announced in March, with Durham’s six entries to go forward to the regional final announced at a black tie dinner at St Chad’s College in May.
The Durham winner of each category – creative and design, science and technology, social enterprise and general business – will win £500. The overall Durham winner will win £750 with additional runners-up prizes and there will be £500 for the enterprise that most benefits the university.
Brian Tanner, dean of knowledge transfer at Durham, added: “Blueprint is one of the key ways in which are trying to advance the enterprise agenda and encourage students and staff to be more entrepreneurial.
“The university is not funding the competition and we need external sponsors to support it. There is a synergy in that professional advisers like BHP Law can be involved in the early stages of what we hope will go on to become very successful businesses.”
Mr Tanner added: “Prize money in the regional finals is £10,000 per category. Sponsors put up that money because they believe this competition is important for the universities and important for the region and a great way of encouraging students to put their ideas into practice.”
Last year’s Blueprint winner in the creative category – StuRents.com, an online portal for student accommodation developed by Matthew Heap and Michael Rainsford – has gone on to expand its franchise network to York, Liverpool and Manchester.
So far Blueprint is said to have launched 163 businesses from more than 1,000 business plans submitted, creating about 300 jobs.
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