Outstanding new business ideas go public

Eight outstanding new business ideas will go public at UQ this week when teams present their concepts to judges and guests at Enterprize Pitch Day on Friday, October 14.

An initiative of The University of Queensland Business School (UQBS), Enterprize is among the most lucrative business plan competitions in Australia with the winning team receiving $100,000 in seed funding.

A very competitive field of entries has been narrowed down to eight projects, which will now be assessed on the strength of their business plans, interviews, and the pitch itself on October 14.

The finalists are Trapforce (capturing greenhouse gases from industrial emissions), Spinifex Pharmaceuticals (new pain management drugs), Reperfusion (cardiac therapeutic treatments), L.E.O. Tuning (active mapping engine control system), Hydrexia (new hydrogen storage technology), Casual Employment (software to streamline health workforce management), Petalogix (embedded Linux solutions), and Leximancer (data mining to make sense of unstructured text).

Competition judge Stewart Gow, manager of the Queensland Government’s Venture Capital and Commercialisation Unit, said it would be difficult to decide on a winner because all eight were strong commercialisation prospects.

"The standard of entries this year has been extremely high. I think most have the potential to be successful businesses – even if they don’t win the competition," he said.

"Research conducted by RMIT* a couple of years ago found that while 15 new businesses were started by winners of university business plan competitions, a further 15 were started by participants who did not win the competitions they entered."

To secure your place at Pitch Day contact Amy Hsylop (a.hyslop@business.uq.edu.au).

*The Role and Impact of Business Plan Competitions report was produced by RMIT in 2004 for the Department of Industry, Tourism, and Resources.

For more information contact Cathy Stacey: telephone (07) 3365 6179, Mobile 0434 074 372.