Competition

This competition will help students and recent graduates take their business ideas forward by securing cash prizes to invest in their ventures.

This year we are excited to be able to award 20 businesses with £1250 each! To identify these winning businesses the judges panel will ask students to use an innovative new software, Validate, to explain their business models. There are only 75 spaces available so we are asking that you submit an expression of interest now to earn a spot in the competition. 

Selected participants will have the months of January and February to develop and test their business models in the Validate platform and judges will review their portfolios in March. 

Eligible winners will have the chance to be the Open University’s submission to the 2020 Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards.

The expression of interest deadline is 12 noon on Wednesday, 8th January.

Open University students are eligible to enter the competition if they are resident in the UK and currently studying at undergraduate or postgraduate level, or have graduated on or after 31 January 2018 at undergraduate level or above. Employees of The Open University are not eligible to enter.

If you have any questions or need alternative formats to the materials provided here, please get in touch with us at  RES-student-programmes@open.ac.uk