It was a kind of soft Dragons' Den, 41 young potential entrepreneurs mingling with successful business leaders vying for their attention.
This was the final of Ingenuity19, which challenges competitors from across the Midlands and further afield, to find practical solutions for complex social or business problems.
Teen-behaviour.com, for instance, helps businesses save money and meet their corporate social responsibilities by improving the productivity, absenteeism and retention rates of employees who have adolescent-aged children.
Their plea? “We would appreciate introductions to directors and HR managers of large organisations in the public and private sectors.”
Mind Map aims to build a website that maps nearby locations where users can find help in a panic attack. They are seeking guidance with marketing and publicity and have ambitions to set up a charity.
They gathered for an awards ceremony and dinner in St Mary’s Church in Nottingham’s Lace Market among memorials and tablets to past innovators, many from the lace and textile industry.
The initiative was staged by the Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, part of Nottingham University Business School and led by the Ingenuity event director, Steve Chapman.
Ingenuity19 is established as an annual event hosted by the University of Nottingham. It seeks out enterprising ideas for solving complex social or commercial issues which could transform the future. It is open to students, social enterprises, businesses and members of the public to apply. Prizes together worth £150,000 on offer.
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Mr Chapman said: “Our aim was to inspire a generation and give them the tools to create world class solutions.
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"We set out to produce two events that would provide a dynamic and cooperative space where disparate individuals come together, explore ideas and benefit from their group intelligence.”
Ingenuity19 worked like this.
The starting point was Nottingham focussed, said Nottingham University graduate and event producer, Lizzie Smith. When developing the event, about 45 community groups were approached as well as civic and industry partners to identify their biggest concerns and what opportunities there might be.
Ingenuity received 750 applications which were carefully sifted for the 452 places, identifying how potential entrants could add value. Applications were divided into social enterprises and commercial enterprises.
Lizzie said: “We kicked off in February with the Future Communities Summit and the Future Technologies Summit. The events attracted more than 500 attendees including students, staff and alumni from six regional universities, professionals from Nottingham’s commercial and public sectors as well as change-makers representing low income communities and groups.
“The communities summit offered an understanding of the experience of poverty in Nottingham and other 海角视频 cities. It explored the barriers that exist before focusing on how to develop sustainable social enterprise.”
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The Tech summit heard from Google about innovation while other speakers talked about Artificial Intelligence and the psychology of tech design. Nottingham business information group Experian presented market insights using its Data Lab.
Over a six week programme, participants developed skills to turn ideas into costed business plans which led to 215 aspiring innovators submitting entries for the Ingenuity Competition.
The top 41 ideas were invited to two weeks of pitching for a part of the £150,000 prize fund.
The formula developed by the Ingenuity Lab and put to use in Nottingham could be applied elsewhere in the country, said Mr Chapman, who is also head of the Ingenuity Lab at the Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a business incubator accelerator which helps graduates transform ideas into a practical enterprise. This runs deep in the university ethos.
The Ingenuity events, launched four years ago, were opened up to the wider public to enter this year.
Mr Chapman said: “Ingenuity19 is a move towards civic entrepreneurship with the university having a greater impact by engaging with the key issues the 海角视频 is facing.
"It is about how we create better ideas and engage not only with students but people within the community, the city council and others to look at the key issues we face, how we can provide information data, stimulate their minds and give them tools to create sustainable solutions.
“What we do in Nottingham can be copied elsewhere.”
The university is committed to its civic responsibility, said Mr Chapman. “We can create capacity and bring opportunity to the city.
"Working with other universities, it is about how we stimulate conversations that drive change with a far broader focus.
“As well as research, there is a huge number of other things we can do to tackle big global issues and generate innovation in this country. It is vitally important we do our bit by providing inspiration, ideation and development: how to identify an idea, create a business around it, find a sustainable solution and then compete .”
Mr Chapman said Ingenuity19 applied 20 years of innovation and entrepreneurship knowledge at the university bringing "amazing people” to Nottingham who might not otherwise come to the city.
The two preliminary events for communities and technology gave applicants a chance to understand and examine issues in a dynamic and often controversial forum alongside experts. Social projects and projects led by women featured strongly in the final list of contestants, said Mr Chapman.
Prizes were sponsored by big names such as Experian, financial advisers BDO, Santander, law firm Shakespeare Martineau and the Smallwood Trust.
Their knowledge and expertise alongside the independence of the university helped the event attract a wider community.
He strongly believes that Ingenuity helped those such as community groups or a team within an organisation identify issues and overcome them.
“Essentially, it is understanding problems, examining different ways of tackling them and not always looking to public funds.”