Prize idea comes out of TA trip to Kosovo

The leader of an entrepreneurial student team that has scooped £10,000 in a national business plan competition developed his award-winning idea while serving with the Territorial Army in Kosovo.

Roderick Sutherland, chief executive of Dynamic Innovations, underwent routine army checks for damage to his hearing. He realised that a computer could carry out the analysis done by a human operator, minimising the possibility of error.

A panel of investors and entrepreneurs judged Dynamic Innovations'

"intelligent audiometer" top in the Scottish Institute for Enterprise competition for technology students from Scotland's 13 universities.

Dynamic Innovations, a four-member team from Glasgow University, will start seeking £500,000 financial backing at Connect Scotland's Springboard event next month. This showcases new companies to potential investors.

Mr Sutherland, who is studying for a PhD in Glasgow's electronics and engineering department, is also taking a part-time MBA at Napier University.

"You get engineers who come up with ideas but are not able to present them well. That's why I'm doing the MBA," Mr Sutherland said.

The two runners-up in the scheme, which each won £5,000 and will also make Springboard presentations, were Intelliflame from Dundee and Aberdeen universities and ReacTec from Edinburgh University.

Intelliflame's plan is for a device to monitor fires of different substances for the offshore oil industry, while ReacTec hopes to create a ski that reacts to the texture of snow.

Carl Togneri, director of SIE, said: "The success of our first national business plan competition is testament to our belief that there are many nascent technology student entrepreneurs in Scottish universities with the talent and ambition to start up and succeed in business. Our hope for next year is that more students rise to the challenge."