PGDBE start up week

Creative sparks were flying last week at the Southern Institute of Technology when students went head to head in the Postgraduate Diploma in Business Enterprise start up week. Consisting of 9 teams, each team had to put together a business portfolio incorporating defining the business value proposition, identifying who would be their target customer segment, testing the business concept and validate it with real people, building prototypes or models of their business concept and pitch and present their business to the guest judges.

Guest judges for the event were Penny Simmonds (CEO SIT) Paul Casson (CE Venture Southland) and Sarah Hannan (CEO Southland Chamber of Commerce). The teams were also mentored by local Southland business leaders throughout the competition to help them with putting together their business ideas. Mentors were XingDong Yan, CEO of Judith Cambridge Chartered Accountants, Avinash Varghese CEO of Pride Property Management, Peter Teong, Director of Gates Global Consultant Tyros Pte Ltd, Singapore.

Team MobileKTV took out the event with their business concept “Singing Plus”. Singing Plus was created to bring a different flavour for parties and events. The concept was centred on entertainment through Karaoke TV with a listing of multi-cultural music and songs, a wide range of food catering options including cuisines from different cultures and professional party equipment and decorations.

SIT CEO Penny Simmonds said “The judging panel were really impressed with the standard of the presentations and the novel business ideas that came through. We felt that there were at least 4 – 5 business concepts that could almost immediately be launched in Southland. The winning concept was a very clever appreciation of the right time and place to introduce a niche product of total entertainment - music, food, decorations from various cultures that are currently growing in Invercargill.”

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