September 2004
News

Business Ideas Win Through

A football fantasy game and a business to improve call centres won the top prizes in a University competition.

The ThinkBusiness@Bradford Business Concept Competition received a high number of entries from across the University.

But after much deliberation six graduates were invited to present their business ideas to a panel of judges hoping to win one of two financial support packages. Judges finally selected Footie.com and Àreté Outsourced Solutions Ltd and both received £2,500 towards establishing their businesses from the University's ThinkBusiness@Bradford scheme.

Paul Clapham, of Footie.com, has developed a concept for a fantasy football management game.

The panel, impressed by the game's novel features, felt the game had significant market potential. Paul received an additional £500 from Business Link for West Yorkshire for the 'proposal with the greatest growth potential'.

Alison Widdup, of Àreté Outsourced Solutions Ltd, is planning to set up a new breed of outsourced call centres in West Yorkshire. She outlined a clear philosophy on how these facilities would be managed and the potential benefits for both companies and end users.

HSBC Technology Banking Manager Giles Barton also presented Alison with £500 for the 'proposal with the greatest employment potential.'

University Business Development Manager Andy Duley said: "We now have 13 businesses trading since we launched in October, and these two excellent proposals will hopefully be joining them soon. We are also working with a number of the entrants which, while they didn't win, were still impressive."

The ThinkBusiness@Bradford programme is an initiative to support graduates and students considering self-employment or launching their own business venture.

28 September 2004

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