Young innovators shine

Luke Duggleby, 22, of Bristol, Nick Palfrey, 23, of Plymouth, and 25-year-old Rowenna Davis of London have been announced as the winners of the Internet Explorer 8 Life Academy competition.

The competition asked UK residents aged 18-25 to come up with an altruistic business idea that would make good use of the web. Entries were in the form of a two-minute video introducing the idea.

From 268 entries, 12 finalists were chosen to present their idea in person to an all star judging panel including science advocate Professor Robert Winston of TV’s ‘The Human Body’ fame, one of the founders of lastminute.com Brent Hoberman, mathematician Rachel Riley from TV’s Countdown, Microsoft UK’s director of Windows consumer business Leila Martine, and Channel 4 news technology correspondent Benjamin Cohen.

The awards were in three categories - Adventurer Explorer Grant for travel, adventure or environmental projects; Online Venture Explorer Grant for budding technology and business entrepreneurs; and Creativity Explorer Grant for creative, media and arts-based ideas.

The winners were:

Bristol University medical graduate Luke Duggleby won the Adventurer Explorer Grant for his charitable idea to build a Vocational Centre in Bweyale, Uganda. The young entrepreneur will use the funds to help bring the internet and services to Bweyale which will significantly improve their personal and educational needs in the community.

Nick Palfrey won the Creativity Explorer Grant for Moofu Education, an e-learning system aimed at maximising students’ potential by using multi-media tools and new technology to make learning spaces better. Using cutting edge games technology, and an understanding of students’ needs, it encourages students to design, create and develop their own learning spaces - and interact with the elements within.

London-based graduate and freelance journalist Rowenna Davis won the Online Venture Grant for her concept Young People: Local Government. Rowenna entered the competition with an idea to target young people who are disillusioned and disengaged with mainstream politics. The prize money will go towards building a website that will link young people to local governments around the country who are struggling to find new councillors.

Following the judging late last month, Rachel Riley said: “Everyone’s been really enthusiastic, receptive to questions, [providing] really good answers.

“I’ve been really impressed with how well thought through their ideas area and how far they’ve got with no funding so far, so I look forward to finding out how they get on once they’ve had the £10,000 grants.”