The Mayor's Entrepreneur Programme

A competition that has asked London’s students to come up with viable, sustainable business ideas since 2012

If you have registered your interest keep an eye on your inbox for an alert when we open for applications for the 2024 competition.

The programme aims to create growth that makes London cleaner, greener and ready for the future; and, to ensure students see entrepreneurship as a viable career path and get the skills they need to succeed.

The competition is completely free to enter and taps into the perspectives and creativity of London’s students to find solutions that will improve their city.

The programme is delivered in house by Mayor’s Fund for London staff and funded through support from the Citi Foundation. You can contact the competition team directly by email with any questions you may have.

Want to find out more? Read about the experiences of our past interns, winners and finalists.

Applications for the 2024 competition are now closed.

About the Competition

Four Awards

For 2023/24 there are four awards with each of the winners receiving £20k to start up their business along with expert mentoring from staff at City Hall to get their idea to market.

The Awards are Creative Industries, Environment, Health and Tech.

Applications for the 2024 competition are now closed.

How does it work?

Step 1: Come up with a great idea

Students, either as individuals or part of a group, have between now and the deadline to come up with their ideas.

Step 2: Submit your great idea

Enter the competition via the competition entry page before the deadline of 11 February 2024, 11.59pm. Applications for the 2024 competition are now closed.

Step 3: Judges do their bit

An expert panel of judges from each award will shortlist the 20 best ideas from each award to go through to the semi-final.

Step 4: The Semi-final

The 80 semi-finalists will attend a bootcamp style training session to get some additional training and tips on pitching. They will then create a two minute video pitch which will be sent to the expert judges who will select the top five ideas from each award to go through to the final.

Step 5: The final

In May 2024, the 20 finalists will get to pitch their ideas in front of a panel of celebrity judges and a live audience at our online event. This is when the four Mayor’s Entrepreneurs for 2024 will be chosen.

Who can enter?

Should I enter as an individual or as part of a team?

You can enter as either or both.

Who can apply?

you must be, or have been in 2023/24, a student from a university or college within Greater London or have graduated in the last year (since December 2022). You’ll need to submit proof you are or were a student, like a scan of your student ID/graduation certificate showing the date
you must be over 18 on 30 March 2024
you need to be legally able to conduct business activity in the UK from the Summer 2024.

Find more information here:

https://www.gov.uk/set-up-business

https://www.gov.uk/start-up-visa/switch-to-this-visa

Do all team members have to be eligible to enter the competition?

No, you can choose whoever you want for your team, as long as the lead member is eligible. However, only the lead member and eligible team members can receive the prize money.
Eligible members will sign a basic contract with City Hall before receiving the prize money.

Criteria

Ideas are judged on:

Originality – What makes your idea new for London? How is it better and smarter than what’s already out there??
Capacity for commercialisation – How will your idea make money and who will use it??
Clarity – Make sure you describe your idea really clearly?
Relevance to the aims of the award – make sure you link your idea to your chosen Award
Positive impact on the environment/society– What are the environmental and/or societal benefits of your idea??

The 2023 winners are:

Creative Industries Award winner

Inotum – Hanan Tantush – London College of Fashion, UAL

Intotum is an adaptive clothing brand of comfortable, stylish garments that work with users’ specific needs to empower and include disabled people in fashion. Creating access to inclusive fashion, whilst removing everyday obstacles through hidden functionalities for easy dressing and wear.

Environment Award winner

Guerilla.Co – Henry Parkin, Summer Chen, Adhesh Shenoy & Hunaid Nagaria – Royal College of Art/Imperial College London

Guerrilla is a retrofittable device enabling roadside drains to capture particulate pollution, which would otherwise be washed into the ocean due to rainfall in cities. It extracts contaminants passively using no membranes, moving parts or electricity, and operates at high flow rates and high efficiency while integrating into the current maintenance regime.

Health Award winner

upLYFT – Aalok Rai and Zuzanna Kosobudzka – Imperial College London & UCL

upLYFT is designing the next generation of smart wearables that uses a combination of machine learning and mechanical stimulation to improve mobility and musculoskeletal health. Our mission is to empower the elderly and promote independence within the ageing communities.

Tech Award winner

Mentis – Leila Al-Azzawi, Itziar de Pedro Sarasola, Esther del Portillo, Robert Field & Sean Wisskirchen– Royal College of Art/Imperial College London

Mentis is a fast and efficient way to find real talent among the masses, where candidates complete a short challenge and the platform automatically generates their Curriculum Mentis (CM). Other companies use AI to quantitatively assess candidates, but our tool empowers our customers to make their own judgments, ensuring a fair recruitment process for candidates.

Meet the 2024 Finalists

Creative Industries Finalists

CLOSWAP – Peter Zakhar, Maria Remy & Dominik Vesely – Hult International Business School London

ArtLoop – Ziwei Lu & Yijia Wu – Royal College of Art

Violin Shoulder Rest Arena – Weijie SHI, Minyang Ding & Milo Berben – Royal College of Art

Wearable oxygen – Xueni Sun, Sijia Chen, Jinjin Li & Rui Qian – Royal College of Art

CocoPac – Sanchitha K Ratnakara & Sanan Goyal – King’s College London

Environment Finalists

Phytavaren Technology – Jasarin Klaysuk, Kongphat Phaiboonnukulkij & Kolatat Phaiboonnukulkij – UCL

PulpaTronics – Barna Soma Biro & Chloe So – Imperial College London & Royal College of Art

Medusa – Sofia Iglesias Lobatch, Veronika Rattaj & Samuel Plesnik – UCL

Sealeo – Diana Epel & Emanuele Griccioli – Royal College of Art & Imperial College London

Tyred – Lancelot Hoare, Daniel Bursztynski, Oleg Osipenko & Nikita Baranov – London School of Economics

Health Finalists

Papcup – Sanziana Foia – Imperial College London

Reconnect – Connie Kiew, Joyce Wai Yi, Sze Sabrina Yiyao Song, Evelyn Kwan, Henry He & Rohan Bharadawa – UCL

Pleural – Fergus Laidlaw, Yihan Dong, William Eliot & Daniel Hale – Royal College of Art/Imperial College London

Arcus – Emmeline Bolton, Rojeanne Stoffer, Eva Brazier, Thomas Kingan & Neil Patel – Imperial College London

Alphavectors Biotech – Apanpreet Kaur, Rongjun Chen & Nigel Slater – Imperial College London

FlowSense – Muna Daud – Imperial College London & Royal College of Art

Tech Finalists

Carbon Trac – Yasmine Abdu – UCL

Patent Space – Amelia Bryant, James Howells, Jack Beaumont, Harris Mier & Avi Tripathi – Imperial College London

ARENA – Yassin Ali & Ayani Mohamud – King’s College London

Medly AI – Gu-yun Jung & Dr. Kavi Samra – University College London

Classify – Laura Bastos, Amy Smith, Amy Walter, Anusha Narayan & Isaac Winson-Bushby – Imperial College London