Sir Gerry Robinson is a well known and highly successful British businessman. His quest in this new Channel 4 TV programme takes him into the lives of two couples, both of whom have built award-winning enterprises, but are now equally desperate for his cash. Watch the show at Gerry’s Big Decision

Cambridge UK is known for top science and engineering talent and research. More exciting is that many of these innovations and ideas are leaving the lab and are being commercialised by start-ups created in Cambridge.
The first Cambridge Technology DEMO Night, on Thursday, June 18th 2009 hosted at Anglia Ruskin University AIBS, featured 7 minute demos from three great Cambridge start-ups:

True Knowledge – answer (search) engine based on ontological principles;

Timetric / Inkling Software – statistical software for time-series charts, and Mini-Seedcamp London winner;

Broadersheet – Hyper Personalised Newspaper

In the audience were 75 entrepreneurs, technologists, researchers and students. Professor Stuart Wall , Head of Dept AIBS Cambridge, welcomed attendees to this inaugural meeting which was chaired by its instigator Jed Christiansen. Dr Chris Mitchell (Anglia Ruskin PhD graduate) of Audio Analytic helped to organise the event.

On Friday 12th June 2009, at the Amrath Grand Hotel de L’ Empereur in Maastricht an AIBS team comprising Jost Braeckelmann (International Business Berlin) and Paula Petraityte (International Business Maastricht) defeated university teams from Germany, Russia, Spain and the Netherlands to win the HOTS (Hotel Operations Tactics and Strategy) international business game.

The first round of the HOTS competition took place simultaneously in May at Anglia Ruskin Cambridge, University Zuyd Maastricht, Zaragoza Hotel Management School, Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Nizhny Novgorod State University.

The finals were in Maastricht 8th-12th June 2009. Students’ business skills were subjected to rigorous test as they wrote a strategic marketing plan for a struggling hotel, implemented their strategy against other teams in a computer simulation , then defended their strategy and performance to a panel of industry experts and academics from the hospitality sector.

The verdict of the judging panel was unanimous and the winning strategy described as exactly what an experienced hotel manager would implement in the same situation. The achievement is all the more remarkable for Jost being a first year student and one of the other teams being from a specialist School of Hotel Management.

Our team was supported throughout by Tim Froggett, Programme Leader International Business, and Allison Beaumont, researcher.

The Anglia Ruskin team found time for leisure in Plymouth during the Flux 2009 competition in April 2009

FLUX 500 is a fast-paced business competition which takes you through the process of setting up and planning a business. You work in a team of  six students on a real-life business scenario.

The University of Plymouth was venue for FLUX in 2009. Our team travelled from Cambridge by train; the rail route from Paddington to Plymouth is a great experience.

We stayed in Plymouth from Sunday 5th April to Wednesday 8th April 2009 at the Jurys Inn hotel.

Allison Beaumont of Anglia Ruskin University organized the FLUX competition team selection, training and Plymouth accommodation and travel, assisted by Alana Hanwell and Robert Jones.

28 teams competed in FLUX 2009 and worked very hard in the two day competition. Our team also found time to enjoy the fine spring weather and tourist

attractions of this historic city.

Our team competed in the UBC Universities Business Challenge Grand Final at IBM HQ on Friday 6th March 2009. The teams in this final round were the top ten of the 240 university teams that entered the competition.

In 2008 our Anglia Ruskin team was first in this competition and took the IBM UBC trophy.

Robert Jones at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge is now recruiting teams for the 2009-2010 IBM UBC – contact robert.jones@anglia.ac.uk

An Anglia Ruskin student team won their IBM UBC heats, held October – December 2008 in which 240 university teams competed. 80 teams went through to the ten semi-finals, including our team.

I collected the team – Lukasz Mlodyszewski (Poland), Daniel Kasberg (Germany), Martin Witthoeft (Germany)  and Pascal Bornet (France) – at 6am outside the Helmore building on Friday 13th February 2009 and we made our way to the semi final at Proctor and Gamble headquarters at Weybridge.

The journey was quite eventful – snow-covered roads in Cambridge, the A505 closed by flooding, and a very slow moving M25 which resulted in our arriving one hour late at P&G. However the UBC organisers delayed the start of the competition until we arrived.

Lukasz, Daniel, Martin and Pascal quickly settled into the first round of the all-day business simulation. They made an excellent start by taking first place as a result of their clear and daring strategies. In the second round, an excellent team from Sheffield Hallam made a dramatic recovery from their first round deficit and overtook my team. Sheffield Hallam increased their lead at the end of the third round and it was a two horse race going into the final round. After a nail-biting wait for the results, the Anglia Ruskin team was pronounced winner of the semi-final, by a considerable margin. The long game strategy selected by Lukasz, Daniel, Martin and Pascal had finally paid off.

The team will now appear in the UBC grand final at IBM Europe headquarters on Friday 6th March, competing with the top teams including three teams from Imperial College and two from Exeter.

Anglia Ruskin teams have won through to the grand finals in 2006, 2008 and 2009. Glyn Burton’s team was second to Manchester University in 2006 and my team won in 2008.

Lukasz, Pascal, Daniel and Martin hard at work

Robert Jones, lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Ashcroft International Business School in Cambridge is recruiting student teams for the Enterprise Week “Make Your Mark Challenge” in November 2008.

In November 2006, our Anglia Ruskin University team was in the final 5 teams out of 108 British university teams.

Contact     robert.jones@anglia.ac.uk      for details

Robert Jones, lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Ashcroft International Business School, is recruiting student teams for the IBM UBC 2008 / 2009.

Anglia Ruskin’s team was 2nd in 2006 and our team won the 2007 / 2008 IBM UBC. The next IBM UBC will be global and our teams will be competing with teams from India and South Africa.

Contact       robert.jones@anglia.ac.uk        for details

IfM Technology Enterprise Group (TEG) seminars:

Speaker:                     Doug Richard
Title:                           The role of Business Angels in funding technology-based start-ups
Date/time:                  Tuesday 20th May, 13:15 – 14:15
Location:                    Seminar Rooms A+B at the Institute for Manufacturing, Mill Lane, Cambridge,     http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/service/maps/.

If you would like to join Robert Jones and attend this seminar, please email to confirm:-

thwm100@eng.cam.ac.uk