Online Speed Networking

Taking place NOW!! From 6pm on Tuesday 18th November during the first ever Global Entrepreneurship Week,
this event will be coordinated by Make Your Mark, NCGE Flying Start and YouNoodle.

Speednetworking is a fun way to unleash energy, share ideas and make connections - fast. To capture the true spirit of speednetworking we are doing something that has never been tried before. We have been working with www.speeddate.com to repurpose the SpeedDate site for business networking. With a specially created site for us to use without the danger of speeddaters interuppting us, we will be conducting enforced 3 minute video speednetworking sessions.

To get involved follow the steps below:

1. You must have a computer with internet access, a webcam and a microphone (preferably a headset)
2. Go to networking.speeddate.com/index.php?page=signup&section=join
3. You must say you are Female seeking Female in order for the matching to work
4. You must say you are in the United States and use the zip code 94107 for the matching to work
5. Skip the friend import / invite by clicking "I have no friends"
6. Skip filling out the profile. Perhaps a photo / club logo and brief description would be nice though.
7. At 6pm on Tuesday 18th click "Start Speeddating"
8. You need to wink at people before it will connect you, so browse the profiles with the arrow buttons and wink at everyone!

This may well be the very first professional, enforced 3 minute online video speednetworking session ever, so we are all breaking ground here and trying to make existing technology fit something it wasn’t made for. If you have any problems add me (msmith101) and Bob Goodson from YouNoodle (bobgoodson) on skype and we will be able to give you support.

Speednetworking NOW!!!

Go to www.speeddate.com now and get online with Student Entrepreneur Club contacts and representatives from around the world.

With a specially created site for us to use without the danger of speeddaters interuppting us, we will be conducting
enforced 3 minute video speednetworking sessions.

To get involved follow the steps below:
1. You must have a computer with internet access, a webcam and a microphone
(preferably a headset)
2. Go to networking.speeddate.com/index.php?page=signup&section=join
3. You must say you are Female seeking Female in order for the matching to work
4. You must say you are in the United States and use the zip code 94107 for the matching to work
5. Skip the friend import / invite by clicking "I have no friends"
6. Skip filling out the profile. Perhaps a photo / club logo and brief description would be nice though.
7. At 6pm on Tuesday 18th click "Start Speeddating"
8. You need to wink at people before it will connect you, so browse the profiles with the arrow buttons and wink at everyone!

Climate Change Challenge Prize Fund Launched

Innovators working on new ways to tackle climate change are being invited to go head to head in a global competition for the funding to make their idea a reality. If you think you have a great innovation that will tackle climate change, here’s your chance to enter.

The FT Climate Change Challenge launched today by the FT, HP and sustainable development organisation Forum For The Future, will seek out the most exciting innovations - practical ideas which will reduce emissions and make us more resilient to the changes ahead.

The winner, chosen by Financial Times readers and an eminent panel of global business leaders, innovators and climate change experts, will receive a $75,000 prize, sponsored by HP to help develop their product or service and bring it to market.

All the best ideas will be presented to the FT’s worldwide business audience, and in this way the competition aims to help a range of projects to attract the support they need to scale up and maximise their ability to tackle climate change.

“Humankind needs all the ingenuity it can muster to tackle climate change. We will be showcasing some of the world’s best low-carbon innovations. We intend to show that there are solutions to climate change and that money can be made from them,” said Peter Madden, chief executive of the Forum.

The competition aims to find the most promising innovations in every field which has a role to play in responding to climate change. The winning entry could be a technical advance in reducing emissions or a social innovation helping individuals become more resilient to the local impacts of climate change.

The key requirement is that the ideas will have moved off the drawing board and demonstrated their feasibility. Entries must specify how they would use the prize money to develop and extend the product or service. Innovations which have been developed by large companies or which already have major financial support will not be considered.

Forum for the Future will review all the entries and present the 12 most innovative, promising ideas to our panel of judges. They will select five ideas which can be developed and scaled up effectively to give the greatest contribution to tackling climate change. FT readers will vote to select the winner who will be announced in the spring.

The judges are:

• Lionel Barber, Editor, Financial Times
• Sir Richard Branson, Chairman, Virgin Group
• Eileen Claussen, President, Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Strategies for the Global Environment
• Mark Hurd, Chairman of the Board and CEO, HP
• Sir Terry Leahy, CEO, Tesco
• Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Director-General, TERI and Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future and Chairman, UK Sustainable Development Commission
• Leon Sandler, Executive Director, Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, MIT

To read more about the competition, visit www.ft.com/climatechallenge

Entry forms can be completed or downloaded on the Forum’s site: www.forumforthefuture.org/FT-climate-challenge.

The deadline for applications is January 30th.

Tomorrow - North West Student Enterprise Conference - you can still register!

 The NORTH WEST STUDENT ENTERPRISE CONFERENCE 2008 will take place TOMORROW - Wednesday 19th November 2008. Registration begins from 9am at the Lowry Conference Suite, University House, University of Salford

Keynote speech by Salford’s ‘The Secret Millionaire’, Chek Whyte, from the Channel 4 series.

To book you place contact Louise Kenworthy, Acting Enterprise Champion, by calling +44 (0) 161 295 3807 or emailing L.E.Kenworthy@salford.ac.uk.

The cost is: £5 (£3 for Student Enterprise Society members) includes: entrance to all the workshops and speeches as well as breakfast, lunch and refreshments throughout the day and networking.

For more information www.sifesalford.org

Cambridge Brain Research Reveals Entrepreneurial ‘Hot Spots’

A new study by neuroscientists at Cambridge University published in the journal Nature has identified brain activity that shows entrepreneurs are ‘riskier decision-makers’ than their peers in management roles.

 By scanning the brains of 16 entrepreneurs, Professor Barbara Sahakian’s team revealed ‘greater cognitive flexibility’ in entrepreneurs when making ‘hot’ (risky) decisions.

 The evidence suggests this can also be taught. Find out more here.