A student-developed app which aims to help users broaden their social or professional circles has taken the top prize in a University of Glasgow technology-pitching competition.
Three teams of students competed against each other in a Dragon’s Den-style event on Thursday 3 September, pitching their ideas for businesses to a panel of judges which included successful Scottish entrepreneurs and early-stage investors.
The winning app, NomYap, was developed by students Omar Tufayl and Justinas Bikulcius, who each received Nexus 5 phones as prizes.
The event was the culmination of the SICSA Elevate Business Accelerator Programme, which was hosted this year by the University of Glasgow. The programme provides student entrepreneurs with 12-weeks of business training, mentoring and support.
Jill Ramsay, Business Development Manager at the School of Computing Science, organised the event. She said: “We were really impressed by the high quality of the pitches put forward by each of the teams.The participants have worked hard to develop and hone their ideas and apply their technical sklls to generate business ideas with lots of potential to be very successful. I’d like to congratulate Omar and Justinas on their achievement and wish all three teams success in the future for their ideas.”
NomYap is a social app bringing people together who don’t know each other.
It enables people looking to broaden their social or professional circles to meet and eat by sharing details of their interests, location and availability through the app.
The app will be marketed to students in the first instance as large, rich and diverse communities with a shared location. The app will be monetised through local eateries and venues advertising themselves and their promotions to the app’s user community, and NomYappers who decide to get together.
Omar said: “We built this project during term and our skills both really complemented each other. When we heard about the competition we were keen to apply and we’re really delighted to have taken first prize.”
Justinas said: “Taking part in this competition has taught me a lot. I’ve developed a much stronger understanding of how businesses are planned and run, and I’m really grateful for all help we received.”
Omar and Justinas are aiming to have the first version of NomYap available for users in the next few weeks.
