There are 2 categories:

• New technologies and mobile applications - Santander Universities are looking for innovative mobile applications or disruptive technologies. This category includes all ideas/start-ups where a mobile application or technological solution (hardware or software) is central to the business model.
• Important day-to-day products and services - This category essentially encapsulates everything else. As well as submissions providing important everyday products and services, we’d also love to see those with a creative background or a focus on benefiting society.

For each category, partner universities can only submit 1 idea and 1 start-up entry. The criteria for both of these sub-categories are outlined below:

• Idea entry criteria: Your idea should be supported by a full business plan, which clearly shows your intent to launch the product or service. Your business mustn’t have started trading at the time of the submission, but should be ready to launch within the year.
• Start-up stage criteria: Your business must have launched, but can’t have been trading for more than 5 years from the date of the submission

How does the competition work?

1. Our partner universities run their own internal competitions or shortlisting process to choose their best business ideas and start-ups to enter into the competition.
2. Each partner university submits an executive summary and business plan for the ideas and businesses to Santander by 5pm on 29 April 2016.
3. For the first round of judging, the Santander Business Banking and Corporate Banking teams will review all the submissions based on their executive summaries. The business plans will be used as supporting material if needed, but they won’t be marked at this stage.

The closing date is 30 March 2016. To find out more please email developmentoffice@mdx.ac.uk.