UHI Inverness Business Competition 2022 winners announced

A CRAFT distiller inspired by her great, great grandmother – one of Ardgay’s last illicit distillers in the 1800s - has taken the top prize in the UHI Inverness Business Competition.

Ciara Bow (23), founder of Gledfield Distillery, took the award after impressing the judges with her passion to bring craft distilling back to Sutherland with her family’s age-old botanical spirit recipe.

Other winning ideas included:

• A mobile application connecting businesses and transport providers so transport vehicles are not running empty or partially loaded.
• Wind turbines located next to moving traffic to harness the force of kinetic energy.
• A ‘smart’ jumper that helps tackle domestic abuse.
• An Inverness-based cookery school for beginners.
• A supplement shaker.
• A small modular vertical farming unit.

The UHI Inverness Business Competition, run by CREATE, part of the Centre for Remote and Sustainable Communities, is now in its 16^th year and encourages enterprise and innovation by supporting people in the Highlands and Islands, Moray, Perthshire and Argyll to take their first steps on the road to starting their own business.

Eight finalists shared in a prize pot of £8000.

The 2022 winners were:

• Top Prize, £1000 and a combined legal and accountancy package - Ciara Bow (23), from Ardgay, Sutherland. Sponsored by Harper Macleod LLP, Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors, Northern Innovation Hub, City-Region Deal and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Ciara also won the Best Presentation Award, £500 - Sponsored by HBS Ring Ltd, The Apprentice Store, Jimmy Hendry master plumber.
• Best Engineer Award, £1000 - Calum Macdonald, a BEng (Hons) Energy Engineering student at UHI Outer Hebrides. Sponsored by Engineers in Business Fellowship.
• Best Commercial Award, £1000 - Jack Barrie, from Inverness. Sponsored by Northern Innovation Hub. Jack also won the Youth Entrepreneurship Award, £500 - Sponsored by HBS Ring Ltd, The Apprentice Store, Jimmy Hendry master plumber.
• Best Student Award, £1000 - Chloe Muir, from Keith, a Business and Management student at UHI Inverness. Sponsored by the University of the Highlands and Islands. Chloe also won the Most Innovative Business Award, £500 - Sponsored by HBS Ring Ltd, The Apprentice Store, Jimmy Hendry master plumber.
• Best Social Impact Award, £1000 - Rebecca Wallace, an Aircraft Engineering student at Perth College UHI. Sponsored by Engineers in Business Fellowship.
• Best Researched Award, £500 - Aleksandra Czech-Seklecka and Mariusz Seklecki, from Inverness. Aleksandra is an ESOL student at UHI Inverness. Sponsored by Northern Innovation Hub.
• Best Cultural and Environment Award, £1000 - Anna Renouf, from Brora. Sponsored by Engineers in Business Fellowship.
• Accountancy Package - Michael Fallows and Connor Rae, Business Management students at UHI West Highland. Sponsored by Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors.

The awards ceremony took place at UHI Inverness on Wednesday 25 May, with Izzy Cunningham, founder of Skye-based Scribe and Grow and IMPACT30 participant, attending as guest speaker.

The competition attracted 60 entries from students across the UHI partnership, as well as entrepreneurs living in the Highlands and Islands, Moray, Perthshire and Argyll.

Professor Chris O’Neil, Principal and Chief Executive of UHI Inverness, said: “The essence of the UHI Business Competition is to encourage an enterprising mindset, a can do, will do, be all you can be attitude, and ultimately support growth in entrepreneurship in our university and wider region. All the finalists have spotted an opportunity and shown great initiative and determination to take the first steps on the road to starting their own business. They are all winners, and I wish each and every one of them success in their entrepreneurial journey.”

This year’s judges included: Samantha Cribb, Managing Director of HBS Ring Ltd and UHI Inverness board member; Shane Healy, Distilling Director at Whyte and Mackay; and Mairi MacDonald, Enterprise Manager at Royal Bank of Scotland.

Shane Healy, Distilling Director at Whyte and Mackay, said: “I found the 14 finalist entries to be of the highest calibre, covering a range of pressing social, business and sustainability issues. What was great to see was the representation from around the Highlands and Islands, Moray and Perthshire. I can clearly see our finalists following through on their ideas and turning them into reality and making a positive difference to our communities and our planet. It has been an honour to meet the finalists and play a part in helping them realise their potential. Well done to everyone involved in this competition for creating the environment to make this happen.”

Samantha Cribb, Managing Director of HBS Ring Ltd, added: “I have been blown away by the quality of submissions again this year and come away inspired by the drive, ambition and enterprising spirit that exists across our communities. Supporting entrepreneurship helps to deliver positive change via innovation that can have a lasting benefit not only for individuals but for the wider community. I am encouraged by the richness of creativity and business ideas that challenge current market sectors and propose solutions to community, societal and environmental issues.”

This year’s business competition has been made possible with support from sponsors: Engineers in Business Fellowship, UHI, UHI Inverness, Harper Macleod LLP, Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors, Northern Innovation Hub, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, The Apprentice Store, HBS Ring Ltd, Whyte & Mackay, Scribe & Grow, and Jimmy Hendry Master Plumber.

Graham Hastie, Managing Director of Bellfield Consulting, attended the awards on behalf of Engineers in Business Fellowship, a charity that promotes the importance and value of business education for engineers. He said: “It was an honour to present prizes on behalf on the EIBF. We are passionate about both business and engineering, and it was truly inspiring to discover so much entrepreneurial talent within the region, with ideas from small scale vertical farming to renewable biomass briquettes.”

Claire Munro, Senior Project Manager for the Northern Innovation Hub, added: “It was really encouraging to see so many inspiring entries, demonstrating that the Highlands and Islands is a great place in which to grow your business. It’s particularly heartening to see a high number and diversity of ideas coming forward from young entrepreneurs, and we look forward to supporting them further on their journey through programmes such as IMPACT30.”

Ends

For more information, please contact Helen Aird, Marketing and PR Executive, UHI Inverness at Helen.Aird.ic@uhi.ac.uk or telephone 01463 273315/07584616252.

Winners:

• Top Prize, £1000 and a combined legal and accountancy package - Ciara Bow (23), from Ardgay, Sutherland. Sponsored by Harper Macleod LLP, Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors, Northern Innovation Hub, City-Region Deal and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Ciara also won the Best Presentation Award, £500 - Sponsored by HBS Ring Ltd, The Apprentice Store, Jimmy Hendry master plumber.

Ciara, who studied fabrication and welding and performing engineering operations, wants to resurrect her ancestors’ craft by producing a botanical spirit.

She said: “My ambition is to bring craft distilling back to life in my home in the Kyle of Sutherland. I will resurrect my family’s age-old botanical spirit recipe with a modern twist, create employment opportunities, attract tourism to the area by way of tours and tastings and give back to my community with a donation to a local charity with every bottle sold.

“My inspiration is driven by passion and heritage. My great, great grandmother Marjorie Macbeath was one of the last illicit distillers in Ardgay in the 1800s. When the excise men came on horse and cart to remove her pot still, she hid it under her petticoats in the burn. She lived on a croft and distilled her spirit using botanicals which she had access to. Women were distilling long before men and it’s a story not celebrated enough.

“Taking part in this competition has been an amazing experience. It was a wonderful opportunity to network with other professionals and gain invaluable feedback which I am incredibly grateful for. The support I have received has been phenomenal, during and since the event. I love telling my story and I’m always so grateful when people give their time to listen, it means so much that the judges were quite literally invested in my story and prepared to support me in my journey.

“My next goal is to finalise recipe development and secure a premises, we are very nearly there! I am so very lucky to be living my dream. If you have an idea, a passion, just go for it! It does not matter if you are only able to take little steps, you are still making progress. Talk to people, to anyone that will listen, I have found so much support from others in different stages of the journey and hearing their stories has really helped, encouraged, and driven me. Never give up. If you can’t predict the future, create your own.”

• Best Commercial Award, £1000 - Jack Barrie, from Inverness. Sponsored by Northern Innovation Hub. Jack also won the Youth Entrepreneurship Award, £500 - Sponsored by HBS Ring Ltd, The Apprentice Store, Jimmy Hendry master plumber.

Jack’s business, VShake, is a Scottish start-up working on designing a supplement shaker that lets you enjoy your shakes the way they were meant to be! His mission is simple: to design health and fitness products that keep their promise, are bought once, and loved forever!

• Best Researched Award, £500 - Aleksandra Czech-Seklecka and husband Mariusz Seklecki, from Inverness. Aleksandra (35) is an ESOL student at UHI Inverness. Sponsored by Northern Innovation Hub.

Aleksandra’s idea, QuickPick app, helps to connect businesses looking for transport of their goods with transport providers running empty or partially empty trucks and vans. It helps to increase utilisation of vehicles and reduce costs. It is cheaper, efficient and saves carbon footprint by reducing empty runs!

Aleksandra (35) has a background in project management. She combines her ESOL studies with working part-time as a productivity executive for PawPrint, a start-up mobile application helping businesses and individuals trace and reduce their carbon footprint. Husband Mariusz (35) is a software engineer.

Aleksandra came up with the idea for a mobile application linking businesses and transport providers after being let down at the last minute by a company she had arranged to collect medical supplies she had gathered in Inverness to help people in war-torn Ukraine and had less than one week to find alternative transport.

Aleksandra explained: "It took me long and stressful hours to search and contact different transport companies, usually just to learn that they were not available for such a route at that time. This is when I had got an idea of an app, which allows you to easily search for transport vehicles available at your required time and route. At that time, I also learned that transport companies often have to run empty or only partially loaded vehicles in order to pick some load from a far destination or come back empty after delivering the load. This sounds to me like a problem with a wide impact on transport costs, volume of traffic on the roads, carbon emissions, which me and my husband can help to solve with our app.

“The competition was a great opportunity to be able to present my idea in front of the judges, who are experienced business people, and get feedback from them as well as some advice on my next steps. It feels wonderful to win an award, it is such a great honour and, also, a very important validation that my idea makes sense and is needed and that the problem which we want to resolve is important.”

• Accountancy Package - Michael Fallows and Connor Rae, Business Management students at UHI West Highland. Sponsored by Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors.

Michael (19) and his business partner Connor Rae (23) launched Michaels Culinary School, a cooking school which provides one-to-one lessons designed for the absolute beginner who wants to know the basics or an intermediate looking to enhance their skills in the culinary world. It offers a number of classes and courses based in Inverness for ages 15+.

Michael, from Fort William, explained: “We were inspired to set up Michaels Culinary School when we realised there was nobody in Inverness providing cooking lessons. Connor is a chef by trade and has worked in the industry for the past eight years. We saw the gap in the market and decided to fill it.”

He continued: “The entire process from start to finish was amazing. It has really given me the confidence to take Michaels Culinary School to the next level. The judges were so understanding, helpful and kind.”

• Best Engineer Award, £1000 - Calum Macdonald, a BEng (Hons) Energy Engineering student at UHI Outer Hebrides. Sponsored by Engineers in Business Fellowship.

Calum (26), from Lewis, presented his idea for a small modular vertical farming unit that integrates sensors and is standalone but can integrate with other units. The aim is to produce an affordable system for enthusiasts and commercial growers alike in rural and urban areas with an emphasis on flexibility. The business is built around the supply of these units, sensors, seeds, and consultation.

Calum said: “Rising food costs and supply chain issues meant that issues of self-sufficiency had been on my mind.  I live on Lewis, where we exist at the end of the supply chain and yet most of our food is shipped over from the mainland. I thought it was crazy that most of our food is shipped over on a ferry daily and there have been countless times when a sailing could not go ahead, and shelves were laid bare. Equally, from an environmental perspective, the ferry goes through an enormous amount of marine diesel, so the carbon cost associated with this food must be huge. I’ve seen lots of YouTube videos on vertical farming and how keen individuals had built setups for themselves and increasing numbers of companies were trying to develop an economical business model for this space.

“I am pleased and excited to win an award! I didn’t expect to win but it will help me in several ways. I’m looking forward to capitalising on the forward momentum this brings and moving forward in my own life.”

• Best Student Award, £1000 - Chloe Muir, a Business and Management student at UHI Inverness. Sponsored by the University of the Highlands and Islands. Chloe also won the Most Innovative Business Award, £500 - Sponsored by HBS Ring Ltd, The Apprentice Store, Jimmy Hendry master plumber.

Chloe’s idea is to install wind turbines by road/railway/runway to transform the force of kinetic energy from fast-moving traffic into electricity. She is also proposing an app that would identify how much energy is created on travellers’ journeys and compare journeys based on their approximated energy offsetting. Chloe, from Keith, just completed her BA Business and Management degree, which she’s studies part-time with the support of her employer J&G Grant.

Chloe explained: “During maternity leave I have been inspired by COP26 and unfortunately the cost-of-living crisis. The events in Ukraine were enough to convince me that I should enter this idea - anything we can do to have our own sustainable energy sources.”

Chloe added: “To find out I’d won the most innovative business award, it was a complete shock. All the ideas from the other candidates sounded brilliant, I found a new sense of belief in myself as a result of winning. I am so glad I decided to enter this competition along with my studies; it was such a positive experience and confidence boost. The rest of the candidates were incredibly motivated and inspirational, it was a great day to be a part of.”

• Best Cultural and Environment Award, £1000 - Anna Renouf, from Brora. Sponsored by Engineers in Business Fellowship.

Anna’s business, FireHorse, is a forward-thinking waste management company looking to develop a sustainable and renewable biomass briquette. Anna is looking to tackle the growing problems of horse waste management and heating our homes from renewable, cost-efficient, and sustainable sources.

• Best Social Impact Award, £1000 - Rebecca Wallace, an Aircraft Engineering student at Perth College UHI. Sponsored by Engineers in Business Fellowship.

Rebecca’s idea is for a ‘smart’ jumper to help tackle the domestic violence crisis. Any physical abuse directed towards a victim could be detected by the technology within the jumper and the data stored securely.

Rebecca (27), from Tayside, explained: “I have made a new product using a sensor called ‘velostat’. It can detect forces/pressure and due to its flexibility, thinness and light weight – it’s ideal for clothing. By placing it into a jumper, if anyone is subject to physical abuse or any non-consensual contact – the jumper can send data instantly through a tiny Bluetooth or WiFi module within the jumper. This can then be used as evidence where previously there may have been none. It would be targeted at domestic abuse victims who have made complaints, but no other evidence was available to take a case forward.

“My mum started up a social enterprise, so I’ve been inspired by her work and success, but really wanted to do something to support the domestic violence crisis. Waiting for politicians to change something was taking too long. I wanted to help now. 

“The competition challenged me to think about the product in detail and make a prototype. To be told I was a finalist injected confidence in my idea/product. The awards evening was fun and it was inspiring to hear from other finalists and those presenting. I was honoured. I now feel like I have the confidence and ambition to take the idea forward.”