Product Design student makes semi-finals of the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Award

Ravensbourne BA (Hons) Product Design student, Gurjit Choda, has been selected as a semi-finalist in the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Awards. The annual design awards are extremely competitive, with students from 27 institutions taking part.

Established in 2012, the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Award is a competition that asks London students to create viable, sustainable business ideas that could make London greener and cleaner. There are five awards available, with each of the winners receiving £20,000 to start their business, along with expert mentoring from staff at City Hall.

Gurjit is among 140 semi-finalists who will attend a bootcamp-style training session to receive additional tips on pitching. The semi-finalists will create a two-minute video pitch which will then be sent to expert judges who will select the top six ideas from each award.

In June 2021 the 24 finalists will get to pitch their ideas in front of a panel of celebrity judges and a live audience at an online event, with the winner chosen on the day.

Gurjit impressed the judges with her project titled, ‘Wax cap’. Gurjit has designed an ingenious device to preserve the life of fruit in the hopes of tackling unnecessary food waste.

Gurjit is no stranger to industry recognition, having recently won the POPAI Student Design Award 2020. Fellow Ravensbourne student, Mislav Gelenčir, also made the semi-finals of the award last year.

Reflecting on her latest achievement, Gurjit commented: “It feels great to be shortlisted, I didn't expect it especially being a Product Design student opposed to a business student. Product Design is a very versatile course to take and allows you to venture into different avenues of design, so it's definitely worth exploring.”

We wish Gurjit all the best and look forward to seeing how she progresses with the rest of the competition.

You can find out more about the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Award on the dedicated Instagram account. You can view more student work on the Product Design Instagram profile.