A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
The Pitch is a competition where teams have to submit business proposals for a new commercial outlet on the Heslington East campus. According to Events Director Oliver Morbey, this term’s competition focused on both the business plan summaries and the presentations given by the teams that afternoon, with 50% of the results being judged on the teams’ business plan summary and 50% on their presentation.
Oliver said that The Pitch was “a great opportunity for the teams to produce something substantial” and the competition aims to give the teams a chance to “learn by doing”.
Only 5 out of the 8 teams made it past the first round of judging, based on their business plans alone, into the final round, where Team Enhance, emerged as winners of the 600 Pounds grand prize.
Team Enhance, with the tagline “For Ethical and Profitable Solutions”, proposed an eco-friendly fresh fruit and vegetable shop they named “The Hut”, with an inventive idea of using their leftover fruit (before it goes off) to make smoothies, which will also be for sale. The team believed there was a demand for a shop like this through conducting a consumer survey, which showed that most students thought main supermarkets were too far away and 67% were unhappy with shopping at Costcutter. They aimed to sell local produce and estimated a 16% profit in the very first year. The team, made up of Nihad Gomez-Cehic, a third year Philosophy student, Sarah Louis Cook, a third year Psychology student and Stephanie Falzon, a third year English language and linguistics student, impressed the judges with their in depth market research, which was the tipping point for their win.
The other teams had very innovative ideas for their business proposals as well. Team Highfliers presented their business plan for a low cost travel agency called Viva Travel Agency. Their market was aimed towards students and local residents who were looking for cheap package tours to Europe and around England. A café by day and club by night called AbuDJu was also proposed by Team USSR. The last business proposal was a hair salon by the name of Evolve- that according to Team Networth would be the first of its kind at University of York, discounting an unlicensed one-man haircut service at Langwith College that was constantly fully booked.
Judge Tony Robards, who had built Science City York, was particularly impressed with the team York Student Lettings. YSL is already in existence and aims to conquer the student accommodation lettings market which is now according to them a duopoly between Sinclairs and YRLA. However, as YRLA (which holds 30% of the market share) is set for total dissolution in 2010, YSL will be entering a rather contestable market with low barriers to entry. YSL impressed judges to a great extent, and there was even an exchange of business cards at the end of their presentation.
Matthew Freckelton, the Digital Communications Director thought that the teams had shown that “when it comes to enterprise, York is a league in front of the rest.” With regards to the actual implementation of these business proposal, Matthew said, “The University will be looking closely at the plans developed by the students to see if they would be commercially viable on Heslington East”.
University of York students, especially those living in New Goodricke might have our very own student run business in Heslington East to look out for in the future, so lets keep our eyes open!
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