UHI highlights future business talent with awards
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The talent of the future was in the spotlight at the UHI Business Competition 2022 this year.
The awards brought together students and young entrepreneurs from across the region to celebrate bright ideas.
More than 60 entries were made by entrepreneurs and students and put forward to judges this year.
Judges whittled the shortlist down to 14 stand-out proposals with eight finalists taking home winners' plaques and two special prizes.
Hosted at UHI Inverness campus, it marked a return to in-person awards following last year's virtual event caused by the pandemic.
Ideas ranged from a new design of a supplement shaker, to a "smart" jumper designed to record and tackle domestic abuse.
The entrants were all praised by UHI Inverness principal and chief executive Christopher O'Neil as "exceptional".
Professor O’Neil said: “The essence of the UHI Business Competition is to encourage an enterprising mindset, a can do, will do, be all you can be attitude, and ultimately support growth in entrepreneurship in our university and wider region.
"All the finalists have spotted an opportunity and shown great initiative and determination to take the first steps on the road to starting their own business.
"They are all winners, and I wish each and every one of them success in their entrepreneurial journey.”
The UHI Inverness Business Competition, run by CREATE, part of the Centre for Remote and Sustainable Communities, is now in its 16th year and encourages enterprise and innovation by supporting people in the Highlands and Islands, Moray, Perthshire and Argyll to take their first steps on the road to starting their own business.
Eight finalists shared in a prize pot of £8000.
Jack Barrie (22) from Inverness picked up the commercial and young entrepreneur award.
His business, VShake, is a Scottish start-up working on designing a supplement shaker, which is at the pre-launch stage.
He's been forging business relations in recent times in order to get a commercial launch this year.
Jack said: "We plan to launch on Kickstarter.
"I got the youth entrepreneur award and the commercial award.
"My story is a bit cliche - i started selling sweets in the playground when I was eight. I wasn't he most academically gifted at school but I always had a knack for business.
"I took at an education at UHI but then went to work offshore when I was 18.
"And when I turned 19 that's when I started this business.
"Business wise things are going absolutely fantastic.
"It's all uncharted territory when you start up a business."
Aleksandra Czech-Seklecka and husband Mariusz Seklecki, from Inverness picked up best researched award.
Aleksandra (35) is an ESOL student at UHI Inverness.
She came up with the idea for a mobile application linking businesses and transport providers after being let down at the last minute by a company she had arranged to collect medical supplies she had gathered in Inverness to help people in war-torn Ukraine and had less than one week to find alternative transport.
Aleksandra said: "It took me long and stressful hours to search and contact different transport companies, usually just to learn that they were not available for such a route at that time.
"This is when I had got an idea of an app, which allows you to easily search for transport vehicles available at your required time and route. At that time, I also learned that transport companies often have to run empty or only partially loaded vehicles in order to pick some load from a far destination or come back empty after delivering the load.
"This sounds to me like a problem with a wide impact on transport costs, volume of traffic on the roads, carbon emissions, which me and my husband can help to solve with our app.
She added: “The UHI Business Competition was a great opportunity to be able to present my idea in front of the judges, who are experienced business people, and get feedback from them as well as some advice on my next steps.
"It feels wonderful to win an award, it is such a great honour and, also, a very important validation that my idea makes sense and is needed and that the problem which we want to resolve is important.”
Ciara Bow (23), founder of Gledfield Distillery, took the award after impressing the judges with her passion to bring craft distilling back to Sutherland with her family’s age-old botanical spirit recipe.
She said: “My ambition is to bring craft distilling back to life in my home in the Kyle of Sutherland. I will resurrect my family’s age-old botanical spirit recipe with a modern twist, create employment opportunities, attract tourism to the area by way of tours and tastings and give back to my community with a donation to a local charity with every bottle sold.
“Taking part in this competition has been an amazing experience. It was a wonderful opportunity to network with other professionals and gain invaluable feedback which I am incredibly grateful for. The support I have received has been phenomenal, during
and since the event. I love telling my story and I’m always so grateful when people give their time to listen, it means so much that the judges were quite literally invested in my story and prepared to support me in my journey."
The award winners:
Best presentation: Ciara Bow.
Best researched: Aleksanda Czeck-Seklecka.
Youth entrepreneur: Jack Barrie.
Best social impact: Rebecca Wallace.
Best engineering: Calum Macdonald.
Best student: Chloe Muir.
Commercial: Jack Barrie.
Culture and environment: Anna Renouf.
Most innovative business: Chloe Muir.
Johnston and Carmichael accountancy package: Michael Fallows and Connor Rae.
Top prize: Ciara Bow.
