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Blueprint finalists announced at pilot pitch day event

University business planning competition, Blueprint, has announced the latest finalists in the Science and Technology and the Creativity and Design categories to battle it out for a share of £100,000 cash and in-kind support.

The latest entrants are in addition to those finalists who made it through to the main Business Awards category earlier in the year. The Grand Final on 17 October will see entrants from academic staff teams, graduates, undergraduates and alumni students make a final presentation. In preparation for the big day, entrants attended a ‘Pilot your Pitch’ event at the Hilton Hotel in Gateshead recently, to gain some last minute valuable advice from established business owners from the Entrepreneurs Forum, and this year’s Grand Final sponsors.

Business concepts revealed in the latest set of finalists include a waterproof rucksack designed for swimming, an edutainment ‘video game’ x ray simulator, and a business that designs and develops equipment for disability football. At the Pilot your Pitch day the finalists were given the opportunity to present their business idea to members to this year’s sponsors, who gave constructive criticism and advice, so they can fine tune their pitch before the grand final.

Sir Peter Vardy, one of the founders of The Entrepreneurs Forum and a member of the panel, said: “It was great to be at the Pilot your Pitch day and to give some friendly advice to people with such great business ideas. There was a very broad range of business concepts, some were very well thought out and some needed further development but they all had great potential. “It’s great to see so many entrepreneurial businesses being born in the North East and to see how many young people now are stepping straight out of university into running their own businesses.”

For more information about the Blueprint competition, visit www.blueprintcompetition.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .

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