Gary Elliott joins the judging panel for Kingston University’s Bright Ideas 2022 – Latest

Gary Elliott joins the judging panel for Kingston University’s Bright Ideas 2022

We’re always keen to nurture talent and innovation in the next-generation, so it was a pleasure to support Kingston University’s seventeenth annual Bright Ideas competition.

The competition takes place over a number of months and is open to students across all disciplines at Kingston University. Bright Ideas champions future skills such as problem solving and communication. Students develop and pitch their business ideas to a group of experts, Dragons' Den-style, in a bid to be crowned winner in their respective category of innovation.

Hundreds of ideas were pitched before being narrowed down for the grand final. The winner in each of the seven categories received £1,000 while each runner-up is rewarded with £250.

Elliott Wood sponsored the Sustainability category and Gary Elliott was part of the judging panel for the grand final that heard from the students in the in-person pitching session. Having been thoroughly impressed by all of the entries, the panel selected 3cycled as the winners.

The team developed an idea to recycle 3D printed waste into usable filament, an idea that is very much in keeping with our ethos to Engineer a Better Society and reduce waste within the construction industry. One of the team's founders, Bertie Kemp, explained the inspiration behind the idea:

“My idea came out of making 3D prints for my course and being left with all kinds of waste and offcuts. I really didn’t want to throw plastic into landfill and it obviously doesn’t have the markings to be accepted as recycling. Also, it seemed so obvious to me that it should be turned straight back into the original filaments you buy and put back through the machine to make the next print, but there was no way to do this, so I decided I should.

Doing Bright Ideas has been brilliant for me. I’m not studying business, so I’ve never pitched an idea or done a business plan before. I’ve never been good at public speaking and so it really pushed me to test and improve my skill for pitching and also to test one of my ideas and make sure it stands up to scrutiny. It definitely improved my confidence in the idea that I could have a future in business, which I hadn’t thought of before. I’m very happy that I did something so out of my comfort zone and it’s clear to me that it will help me in the future, especially with presenting and promoting my ideas."

Many congratulations to the team members: Bertie Kemp, Maya Patel and Salvatore Bellinghieri Moreno who are all aerospace engineering students.

To find out more about the competition, visit: https://www.kingston.ac.uk/new...






Gary Elliott joins the judging panel for Kingston University’s Bright Ideas 2022
Gary Elliott joins the judging panel for Kingston University’s Bright Ideas 2022