Student success stories

Celebrating entrepreneurial spirit with Venture

Venture celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit found within the University and supports those taking their first steps with their new business ideas. Recent graduate Stephanie Graham and current PhD student Ricardo Moreno Ballesteros each took away £12,500 of prize funding, yet despite this personal success, they both view this as an opportunity to help others.

After completing an MSc in Product Design in 2021, Stephanie is on a mission to make Dundee the city of recovery. She founded Dundee Community Craft CIC, which offers jewellery, teaching, and design workshops as a way to halt poverty, trauma and addiction.

Stephanie and Dundee Community Craft CIC have been making a difference in Dundee by providing a safe space to nurture the needs of people that do not get to go to university and master new skills. “All I am trying to do is make people feel happier about themselves and create an identity that is in favour of themselves,” she said.

While Stephanie focuses on improving people's lives locally, Ricardo hopes his business, GenProTex, will have a global impact.

“Something that I have always wanted to do is to somehow give back to all those countries and places that supported me along the way,” Ricardo explained. Born in Colombia and raised in Spain, Ricardo then completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemistry in Poland. He is now studying for a PhD at the University of Dundee, expanding his knowledge in biochemistry, genetics, and tissue culture.

GenProTex aims to revolutionise the world of drug discovery by providing services that will promote the development of new medicines. The platform is designed to demonstrate the impact of targeting specific proteins on disease development and/or progression by mimicking the effects of drugs without actually using them. “Pharma spends trillions every year on testing new drugs, and most of the time, it fails,” he explained. “If we can provide them with tools that are more effective, we would avoid wasting an incredible amount of time and resources,” he continued.

Coordinated by the University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, Venture is a three-stage new business idea competition open to University of Dundee students, staff and recent graduates, split across different prize fund categories. Thirteen winners across all academic disciplines were selected from an initial 89 applications following a rigorous application and pitching process.

Stephanie and Ricardo are the first recipients of the inaugural McGhee Award, which recognises businesses with the potential to make a significant change locally and globally. University alumnus Christopher McGhee, founder of Current Health, and his wife, Dr Jo-Ann Nugent, generously donated £25,000 to the award, which was split between the two worthy winners. Their support helped the Venture competition swell to a record-breaking £68,000 worth of funding that will help emerging business ideas.

Worthy winners

The Dundee University Rugby Football Club (DURFC) Men’s 1st XV are this year’s British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) National Trophy Winners beating Brunel University’s 2nd XV, 50–33.

The club’s first piece of silverware since the 1980s, and first final since 2014, was the culmination of a brilliant cup run, seeing off teams from Edinburgh, Loughborough, Doncaster, Leeds, and Strathclyde.

This was the final game and the end of their university rugby journey for nearly half the team, who are approaching the end of their degrees. For their fantastic BUCS achievement, the team won the well-deserved Team of the Year at this year’s Sports Union Blues and Colours Awards Ceremony.

School of Business success

Undergraduate and postgraduate teams from the University’s School of Business made it to the finals of their respective categories in the 2022-2023 Universities Business Challenge (UBC).

The competition sees teams of students from universities across the UK compete in a series of business-focused challenges, including leadership, problem-solving and communication tasks. The finalists competed in a full day of challenges, which tested their creativity and analytical skills.

While Dundee's teams didn't come home with trophies, they made the University proud with their determination and professionalism, while developing their employability skills along the way.