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Wild swimmers look set to benefit from a clever business idea created by a Gloucestershire student which has won him £5,000 of investment from the Royal
Agricultural University (RAU).
Twenty-five-year old Chris Baker has won the Cotswold university’s
Grand Idea 2023 prize for Water Mate, a business which aims to help wild swimmers enjoy
their activities in safety.
Baker is now expected to use his winnings to develop Water
Mate into a fully fledged company offering a range of products to allow wild
swimmers to know exactly how cold the water they are entering is and how long
they have been in it for, all aimed at minimising risk and maximising enjoyment.
Baker said: ‘The £5,000 Grand Idea prize will mean I can
properly launch my business and take it from a concept to a reality. I am
aiming to manufacture and market Water Mate’s first products in the UK this
summer.’
All of those products will be sustainably made from organic materials and
recycled ocean plastic.
Now in its 16th year, the RAU’s Grand Idea competition is
part of the university’s award-winning enterprise and entrepreneurship programme which provides a supportive environment for students to develop and
launch their ideas.
The competition invites students to pitch their business
ideas to a panel of experts in a Dragons’ Den-style event.
The runner up, who received a prize of £500 investment in
her business, was 21-year-old RAU applied equine science and business student
Morgan Dutton, from Cheltenham, whose Blazing Browbands business makes bespoke equestrian products including browbands, stirrup
covers and soundproof ear bonnets for horses.
This year’s judging panel included retail
consultant and RAU honorary fellow, Christine Cross, and former Dragon’s Den
contestant, food entrepreneur and RAU honorary fellow, Levi Roots.
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