By Jo Best, 10 February 2004 14:20
NEWS Oxford University has today announced its 2004 Business Plan Competition to find promising new ideas in the fields of technology, science and design - with £30,000 in prize money up for grabs.
The competition is open to people of any age or nationality, with previous business experience or not. Companies can also enter - the only essential requirement is to have a good idea. The competition is open from today until 12 May, with £20,000 to be awarded to the first prize winner and £5,000 each to two runners-up.
Last year's competition notched up 94 entrants - the winner, Surface Generation, which developed a new quick tooling process for manufacturing large engineering components such as plane wings, is about to launch its prototype.
However, the competition is about helping "people with a good idea to make it into reality", Elen Wade-Martins, the competition's co-ordinator, told silicon.com. "We've had everything from hi-tech biotechnology to one finalist who developed a new way of crushing concrete. It's a whole range."
If you're not an natural entrepreneur, don't worry. Help and mentoring will be available for entrants.
So what do you need to enter? Wade-Martins said: "The idea should be novel, it should have received less than £250,000 and it should be to with science, technology or design but we take a very broad view of that means." Entrants will need also to submit a short business plan. For more information and details of how to enter, visit the competition website at www.science-enterprise.ox.ac.uk.
The winners will be announced on 29 June, straight after the final.
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