Five student start-ups, conceived during Homerton College’s flagship Changemakers programme, have won Catalyst Fund grants of £2,000 each plus mentorship from industry experts.

The Changemakers Catalyst Fund is led by Dr Soraya Jones, director of engagement, working with Changemakers academic director Dr Alison Wood, plus Jane Mumford, programme coordinator; Dr Robin Bunce, college lecturer in changemaking; Arlette Doko, social media lead; plus a steering group, academic advisory group and a student ambassadors group.

The winners were chosen at the Changemakers’ Catalyst Fund Showcase event last week, where each of the student start-up winners presented their business ideas to a room packed full of investors, entrepreneurs and innovators, and a panel of judges.

At the Changemakers Celebration Dinner on September 29, hosted by the college’s principal, Lord Simon Woolley, three further prizes were awarded to the most promising business initiatives.

Two Ivan Baines Prizes of £1.5k each and three months mentoring by serial entrepreneur Rupert Baines went to Health Heroes and Lloyd Learner.

Rupert, who sponsors the Ivan Baines Prizes, said: “We face great challenges as a society: I have been incredibly impressed by the breadth and ambition of many of the ideas that start here at Changemakers, and just how dramatically they could improve things.

“Thank you Soraya, Alison and the whole team. What an amazing evening and congratulations to the winners.”

Abiel Ma was one of the Catalyst Fund winners in 2022. He is a student ambassador and a recent Homerton Mst graduate and matriculated in 2019 for the MSt in Entrepreneurship, with a specialised focus in clean energy technologies. He is also CEO and co-founder of Vuala, a company that he says was ‘brought to life’ with support from the Changemaker programme.

Abiel says: “The Homerton Changemaker experience has been truly transformative for me. It has not only provided me with valuable opportunities and networks that were essential to develop Vuala, but it has also given me a more profound perspective on my place in the world.

“My advice to the current students at Homerton would be to seize every opportunity available to you and be open to learning from every experience.”