QMUL’s Careers and Enterprise Centre hosted their third 3 Day Start-up (3DS) boot camp over the summer which encouraged students to improve their entrepreneurial skills in the real world by developing companies over the course of three days.
The idea of the event was to encourage students from any academic discipline to use these skills to either take to an employer, or set up their own company.
This year the boot camp was moved from QMUL’s campus to Central Working Whitechapel, a co-work space, so that students could interact with mentors from their member businesses, and see the kind of space they might end up working in if they continue with their start-up.
In total 25 students (21 from QMUL and four from UCL) all pitched their entrepreneurial ideas on day one, and the five best ideas were voted in by students and worked on in teams of four for the remainder of the event. This culminated in a pitch event to a panel of judges from organisations including Wayra, Disrupt, and JWT. During the event, which was held in July, the students were supported by 20 mentors, including QMUL alumni, founders from start-ups, and employers from local businesses.
One of the business ideas pitched, Tripeeza, went on to win a new Queen Mary and Santander ‘Build It’ award, which gives £10,000 to students to develop a business idea that requires the build of a prototype. Tripeeza connects travel bloggers with travel enthusiasts. Pahal Nopani, who studies an MSc in marketing, is the founder of the business and used 3DS to meet like-minded people and share the idea’s feasibility with them.
Pahal explains: “Tripeeza is basically an e-commerce travel website that aims to make travel really easy for the audiences. It will give the audience at large an opportunity to experience what it feels like to travel like a pro. It would also greatly contribute to the travel industry and inspire people to travel far and wide with ease. How that would be possible and what it would feel like to experience, that is something that the users need to wait for until the final website launch.”
She added: “It was a life changing experience for me to have joined 3DS. I went with no expectations, but came back with huge dreams relating to my start-up.
“3DS helped me streamline my idea and turn it into an executable plan. I got access to excellent mentors who pushed me to work and think harder and develop a full proof plan that was capable of solving a real problem.
“Once I won the Build It award, more than anything else I got an immense sense of self-confidence. It was a mark of trust that other much more knowledgeable people from the industry bestowed on me and it thereby boosted my spirits to greater heights. I would recommend every student to go for it. “
Pahal has been able to develop the website for Tripeeza with the funding she received. She said: “Since I have received the funding, I have founded a team of web developers and created a landing page for Tripeeza. The beta version is going to launch soon too, and will be tested first with the bloggers. The launch of the final website will be somewhere in November. The app is under construction too.”
To sign up for early access head to www.tripeeza.com and send in any recommendations or feedback to pahal@tripeeza.com.
You can see more about 3DS, the partners for the event, here: https://3daystartup.org/
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