Audacious Results 2016

By Claire Grant | Posted: Monday October 10, 2016

University of Otago commerce students Sam Beattie and Henry Fitz-Gerald have won this year’s Audacious Student Business competition with a digital marketplace concept aimed at getting odd jobs done.

Audacious, co-funded by the University of Otago Business School, the Otago Polytechnic and the Dunedin City Council, is a programme and a business competition for students who are curious about starting a business now or in the future or are already working on a business idea. It provides an environment that encourages like-minds to meet, mingle, motivate and inspire each other, and is well-supported by the local business community.

Students have to develop a business plan during the year, and pitch their business dragon’s den style to judges. 

Dunedin City Council Chief Executive Sue Bridrose presented the awards at a function at the Otago Polytechnic hub last week.

Dr Sara Walton, Commerce Division senior lecturer in Management, who was a joint Audacious Academic Leader with Alistair Regan from the Otago Polytechnic, told the crowd of students, staff and representatives from the business community that the 2016 Audacious students were an impressive group. She said the judges were ecstatic with the number and quality of entries.

Ideas ranged from ways to insulate Dunedin rental properties, an interactive, anatomically and physiologically accurate, model neuron, an app providing recipes based on the day’s discounted products from grocery stores, to a device that signals when milk for making coffee has reached optimum temperature through sound, vibration and a visual digital screen.

Sam and Henry’s winning idea was “Sorted,” a digital marketplace that allows users to post fixed-price jobs for other users to complete.

The microtask crowdsourcing platform links people with more money than energy and time, and vice versa. It is aimed at solving the problem of getting odd jobs around the house done that do not require highly skilled workers but simply take time and effort, such as gardens that need mowing, fences that need painting, or garages that need cleaning.

The pair’s prize included investment funding of $5000, plus a package of service assistance including website development from Firebrand, a iPhone and plan from Vodaphone, and marketing from Glow.

Second prize winner was Commerce student Ruth Burdekin with a business proposal which puts health and safety plans and checklists online. Called “Blonde with 2 Legs” (slang for a builder’s preferred hot drink - tea or coffee with milk and two sugars), it aims to make life a little easier while keeping people safe and increasing productivity.

Third prize went to Ethan Fisher, Ben Auton and Grant Bracey-Brown. Their business “Chur” has developed a mobile application for improving user experience at ski fields, music festivals and events. A custom version for each individual mountain or event is built onto an app platform. Core functionality and features including dynamic mapping, group communication and a social feed.

The “Meticulous Measures” group were presented with the 2016 BrandAmp consulting prize.

2016 Audacious finalists:

Hitchme: Adson Llewelyn HIew, Shannon Sologar, Isabella Gentile and Natalie Grant.

Long Term Potential: Blake Porter.

Meticulous Measures: Emilie O’Shea, Bevan Rosenberg, Sarah Shipton, Linda Lin and Jack Stewart.

Phantom Switch: Caleb Makiri, Arthur McKenzie, Ben Watson, Ethan Young and Peter Kim.

Meals & Deals: Corentin le Masne de Chermont, Daphne t’Serstevens, Marie Spanggaard Holm, Daniel Candy and Liam Stuart.

Kiwi Management Solutions Ltd: Haidan (Suzie) Xie, Adam Dumville, Matthew Bray, Caitlin Warwood, Jared Stillwell and Josh Crosbie.

KeepSafe: Vinn Syred, Louis Harden-Bll and Jordan Bolt.