Get your career started with our support, guidance and business initatives
The Enterprise Development Hub (EDH) is a university-wide initiative for students, alumni and staff that want to become a business start-up, a business owner, self-employed, freelance, contractor, sole trader or those who wish to be more entrepreneurial.
Our mission is to improve positive outcomes for students, alumni and staff with regards to the development of enterprise and entrepreneurial skills. We do this by providing the collaborative support of academics, external practitioners and volunteers.
The EDH has helped hundreds of students, staff and alumni develop their self-employment aspirations as well as improve their employability by developing skills that are valuable to businesses.
Many of the students we work with end up volunteering within EDH helping support our activities and sharing their knowledge and experience.
The EDH provides support, training and motivation through a range of workshops, seminars, mentoring and events. Through our networks we also offer seminars on special areas such as, e-commerce, social and eco-enterprise.
Dr Simon Best heads up the Hub and is supported by academics and external industry experts.
We are calling all students - those interested in founding a business, co-funding, or just supporting their peers in developing and growing a start-up. We're providing the tools to bring your passion to life, practice and improve your skills, and start something great!
The MDXcelerator sprint programme gives you the opportunity to access tailored start-up and entrepreneurship mentoring, meet with inspiring and successful business leaders through our masterclasses and workshops, improve on your pitching skills, win seed-funding, and potentially take over the world with your awesome idea!
You can read more about the previous sprint here.
MDXCrowdfund is our easy-to-use, rewards-based crowdfunding platform for students, staff and graduates. It can be used to raise money for a wide variety of things from creative projects, business ventures, events, societies and sports clubs, to course-related projects, personal initiatives, and much more.
To date, more than 100 student projects have featured on the platform raising more than £135,000.
In crowdfunding a large number of people (e.g. family, friends, people with shared interests) donate small amounts of money to a project they are interested in. These donations add up to a much larger amount, enabling you to bring your project to life.
The rewards-based element means donors receive a small reward related to the crowdfunding project such as a special thanks video, a film credit, or a ticket to the show or gig they have helped crowdfund, or even branded merchandise.
Thanks to Santander, the MDXCrowdfund team has £5,000 of match funding to invest in 10 student crowdfunding campaigns this academic year. By using MDXCrowdfund, each lucky recipient selected will receive £500.
Regardless of whether your campaign is selected for matchfunding, MDXCrowdfund offers a number of other potential advantages:
Learn what 2020 BA Film graduate Vasco Durao liked about using MDXCrowdfund and hear his advice for future student crowdfunders!
Hear Grace’s story of how she raised nearly £10,000 and her tips for future crowd funders:
“Using the MDXCrowdfund platform has been a brilliant experience, and allowed me to raise £8,000 for my graduate short film ‘Nice to Meet You, Florence! The fact the system does not take a percentage out of the final amount raised is brilliant also and a massive incentive for using this platform. As evidenced on similar sites, this can take a huge cut out of what’s been raised.”
- Lucy Evans (BA Film Graduate) - Nice to Meet You, Florence!
“The MDXCrowdfund website was very user friendly and it’s a great platform to raise money for a project close to your heart. The advice given by the MDXCrowdfund Team for our campaign was astonishing and truly helped us to reach our target. The team were immensely supportive not only during the process of getting our campaign live, but even after we had reached our funding goal.”
- Michelle Horton (MA Youth Justice / MDX Dance Captain) – MDX Competitive Dance
“At first, the prospect of using crowdfunding was intimidating but the support and advice received from the MDXCrowdfund team was priceless and definitely what kept me motivated to achieve my goal.”
- Khaleel Johnson (BA Advertising, PR and Media) – Conformity Magazine
The MDXCrowdfund team will be looking out for projects that are particularly entrepreneurial, creative, and/or impactful in some way. They will also be looking for projects that help you to learn or develop new skills.
To be considered, you will need to sign up to MDXCrowdfund, create a draft campaign and press publish. The MDXCrowdfund team will then review your project.
Typically students selected for matchfunding will be asked to raise some funding in order to unlock the £500.
To find out more, please email the MDXCrowdfund team or visit the MDXCrowdfund website.
MDXBusinessConnect is a free-to-join networking platform for Business School students, staff and alumni.
Since its launch, over 1,000 members have signed up, many of whom are talented Business School graduates. Many of these are ready, willing and able to help our current students in a variety of ways.
MDXBusinessConnect is powered by Graduway, specialist providers of branded networking platforms to schools and universities.
The site observes Graduway’s standard Privacy Policy.
When you sign up on MDXBusinessConnect via your Facebook or LinkedIn profile, or your email address, you'll be asked to create a very basic profile which will contain your name, your degree, your MDX email address and your student number.
Your profile remains hidden until you choose to activate it.
With pre-approval, your profile will automatically be activated when you sign up instead of having to wait for us to approve it. This means you can begin connecting with useful contacts straight away.
If you would prefer not to have a pre-approved profile created, you can opt out by emailing us. Please include your full name and student number in your email.
Want to get the most out of MDXBusinessConnect? Email our team for guidance and advice.
Please let us know if you have a concern about any of the content featured on the platform or another user.
