Students win prestigious award for Sony business proposal

University of Buckingham students are set to meet Richard Branson after winning a prestigious global award,  StudentLifeStart People’s Choice Challenge , for creating a system for streaming film and videos for undergraduates.

The competition encouraged students to come up with a strategy to solve one of Sony’s business issues. The winning idea is a non-subscription service, where students create a free account and rent or buy films at minimal cost.

“we didn’t expect to win so it was a huge surprise”

Left-Connor-Shotton-Oza.-Middle-Daniel-Pool.-Right-Uzair-Saleh.

Business and Enterprise student Connor Shotton-Oza , English Studies student Daniel Pool and Computing and Software Entrepreneurship student Uzair Saleh, entered the competition as a way of developing some of the business skills they will need for starting future businesses after university.

For the competition, only open to students, they learnt how to brainstorm ideas for real-world business problems, how to turn creative ideas into business concepts and how to go about finding resources which will help with future projects.

Connor Shotton-Oza, a second year Business Enterprise student at The University of Buckingham, said: “Given the scale of the competition we didn’t expect to win so it was a huge surprise hearing our names being called out. Everybody within the University has been incredibly supportive and helped us to achieve this fantastic win.”

Professor Nigel Adams, Head of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at The University of Buckingham, said: “This is an amazing achievement. We are lucky to have such entrepreneurial students at Buckingham and for Buckingham to be leading the way in entrepreneurship.”

Prizes won by the students include £250 and a Virgin Experience Day voucher in addition to the title of People’s Choice Challenge Winner.

The Business Enterprise course (BBE) at the University is the only course in the world to give students the opportunity of pitching up to £5,000 to allow them to start and run their own business as part of the degree.

The University of Buckingham will shortly be opening a new £8 million Vinson Centre for the Study of Liberal Economics and Entrepreneurship.