Music graduate brings International audiences closer together with CritiClassical - Shanshan Shi

As a Master's alumna of the University of Birmingham with a music degree and
working experience in the UK and China, Shanshan Shi has used her skills, temperament, networking and passion for music and the arts to drive and succeed in creating her own business – CritiClassical. 

With a presence in both the UK and China, CritiClassical organises, coordinates and delivers concerts, exhibitions, cultural exchange programmes and other events for clients in one country seeking exposure in the other. 

For example CritiClassical creates opportunities for UK based amateur choirs to host concerts in China while on the other hand, creating insightful 'art education appreciation' touring opportunities for Chinese art students in the UK.

How a trip to Snowdonia inspired two UoB medics to create a fuel splitting app (Dan Chivers and Michael Trueman)

'Commute' is a brand new mobile app designed to help you split your fuel costs when car sharing. The business has been created by UoB medical students Dan Chivers and Michael Trueman.

As medical students we were commuting every day in full cars to and from placements, unsure how to split the cost. 

The organised amongst us created excel spreadsheets with each passenger, the number of journeys, and an estimate of how much they owed. This process, however, was laborious and inaccurate...........we were tired of it. 

Michael: Our idea for Commute first came on the way to Snowdonia for a hiking trip back in 2019, when my co-founder Dan made the simple proposition: 'There should be an easier way to work out how much people owe you for fuel money'. For the rest of the journey we exchanged ideas: widgets, gadgets, wallets, scanners. We settled on a unique journey identifier which we eventually incorporated into our app in the form of a QR code.

Teen Calm: Self-care subscription boxes to help teenagers - Catherine Wassell, M.Ed. Special Education: Autism (Children)

Catherine Wassell is studying a Masters in Special Education - Autism (Children) and is no stranger to start-up life, running three businesses. This blog focuses on her latest business idea called Teen Calm which has been inspired by her 15 year old daughter and aims to offer a calming influence for teenagers and affected by the anxieties of modern living.

'Teen Calm is a brave new subscription box filled with passion and purpose. We aim to show  every teenager out there that they’re not alone. Teen Calm is here to encourage self-care, lift spirits, build confidence, and bring a rainbow of colour to your teen’s life.'

Hazaar - The new zero waste marketplace for UK university students (Harriet Noy, BSc Ecomonics)

Hi! I’m Harriet, the founder of Hazaar. I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a while about my experiences as the founder of a new business. I want to be as open and honest as possible about my journey, and I hope that people learn from my blog. I think writing out my thoughts will benefit me as well as anyone else!

For those of you that haven’t heard of Hazaar: it’s an app I am creating that will give every university their own zero waste marketplace. App development is under way and it will go live after Christmas 2020. I can’t wait! But when I say it’s been a journey to get to where I am today, I am not joking. I am going to tell you everything, from when I first got the idea… to today. Get a cup of tea, it’s a long one!

UoB entrepreneurs share their start-up stories during Birmingham Tech Week

Birmingham Tech Week was a collaborative event across the West Midlands which included 150 speakers over 80 separate online events. The series of talks included themes including technology in industry, start-up advice and regional opportunities during the global pandemic.

The B-Enterprising team joined forces with UoB Start-Up society and UOB Business Engagement to organise a start-up event called 'Student-Built Tech Startups: Starting from scratch' and included three UoB entrepreneurs who were at different stages of their own personal start-up journey.

'Encompass Education' aims to help disadvantaged secondary school students - Amar Bhogal (MBChB Medicine)

Encompass Education is a business created by three University of Birmingham medicine students, Amar Bhogal, Jack Martin and Luke Cutts. This week we caught up with Amar to find out more about the company and find out the idea was born.

Encompass Education is a social enterprise which aims to provide high quality educational support to GCSE and A-Level pupils in order to reduce the attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their classmates. We want to support local Birmingham pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in order to increase academic attainment and encourage pupils to consider further and higher education that they may not previously have thought possible. 

BBC invite University of Birmingham entrepreneurs to share their Start-Up secrets - Snackcess

Three university students who created a lockdown inspired start-up business have featured in a BBC video as part of the CEO Secrets Series online.

Kieran Fitzgerald and Joshua Barley from the University of Birmingham and Sonny Drinkwater from University of Bristol, created a food delivery service called Snackcess which aims to improve the diets of employees working from home during the global pandemic.

The video introduces the three friends and highlights their quick successes with '800 snack boxes sold in September 2020' before showing their personal tips to starting a business. 

You can see the full video on the BBC website here