Design-conscious pet products and personalised exercise programmes to help heart patients recover were among the business ventures recognised at this year’s Think BIG, Loughborough University’s annual celebration of student and graduate innovation.

• Ben Kelly (Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences) won the Consultancy / Service Award for Kelly Medical, which will provide bespoke exercise rehabilitation packages for those living with and recovering from chronic diseases.
• Lydia MacCormack (Retail, Marketing and Management) led a team that won the Creative Award for The Bumpkin Company which produce doughnut-shaped cushions for children to sit on that stack away neatly on to a pole.
• Rob Clifton (Civil Engineering) won the E-commerce and Retail Award for Clothes Comparison, a website that allows shoppers to search for similar items from a range of labels all on a single website.
• Susan Shelley (Design) won the Manufacturing and Technology Award, sponsored by theSir Thomas White Charity for Noux, a high-end design house producing innovative pet products and accessories, including a self-maintaining fishtank.
• Matt Pradhan (Retail, Marketing and Management) led a team that won the Social Enterprise Award for South Africa Challenge, which provides experimental learning programmes for young people in South Africa, helping them to develop a range of leadership and team skills by tackling real-world business and social problems.

The guest of honour at the event was Chris Wickson, Loughborough University Management Sciences Graduate and founder of RMP Enterprise, the go-to brand for organisations wanting to engage with young people at the start of their career.

Chris and his fellow Loughborough graduates won the University’s business plan competition to launch RateMyPlacement.co.uk, which today is visited by over 200,000 students per month and hundreds of corporate clients, from adidas to Zurich. Watch their story in the video at the top of the page.

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