Bradford business students win dragons den innovation competition

A group of seven Masters’ students studying on the Technology and Innovation Management module at Bradford University School of Management have won an innovation contest run by smart TV specialists, Inview Technology.

The  competition, to develop a service that targets consumers via a Smart TV platform, was organised as part of the module by Dr Rana Tassabehji and Andrew Isherwood an associate lecturer.

The Smart TV represents a completely new way for brands to target customers – using the trusted portal of a TV in combination the internet to give a seamless, interactive experience.  This is expected to be a multi-billion dollar industry globally over the next 5 years.

More than 30 students from Masters’ programmes at Bradford University School of Management, ranked the North’s top business school by the Financial Times, entered the competition.  Five groups presented their ideas at a Dragons’ Den style presentation to the panel. 

The winning group developed an application called ‘Inview Inserts’, which enabled retailers, specifically supermarkets, to push special offers that are personalised to their customers via their TV.  This combined traditional TV advertising with personal information and targeting to create a powerful new way for brands to target customers.

Mark Rooney, Competition Judge and Director of Media at Inview Technology said:  “Smart TV is an exciting new platform and offers excellent opportunities for brands across the globe.  We were pleased to see the range of ideas and approaches that all the students put forward as it demonstrated the flexibility of the platform.  The winning idea brought together all the right elements – a useful service, that takes an existing approach and updates it while taking advantage of the ability of the new platform.”

Dr Sarah Dixon, dean of the School of Management, who presented the winners with their prizes, explained: “The idea of the competition was to help the students bring the theoretical concepts of innovation to life with a real business example.  It is essential that our students gain real industrial experience alongside their academic studies.  We are extremely grateful to Inview for this partnership and providing their Smart TV platform as a focus for the project.   The television has been in our homes for nearly 100 years, yet, as this contest shows we can still come up with new ideas and innovation for how we use it.”

The winning group included:

Mohsin Khais

Toshimitsu Kumada
Sarath Manohar
Lloyd Membere-Otaji
Sumeeha Shaffiq
Shao-Hsiu Wang
Omolola Ogunleye