University of York students reach final of 2021 Engineers in Business Competition
Interactive Media students Emily Martin and Wan Yun Law will get to share a prize fund of £15,000 if they win.
Last updated 11th Nov 2021
The annual competition brings together the very best engineering students from right across the UK to pitch their ideas. The most ground-breaking will get to share a prize fund of £15,000.
Not only will the winners receive a share of the prize fund, but they will also receive mentoring from business leader members of the Sainsbury Management Fellows network, CV packages from Purple CV, and entrepreneurial books from Cambridge University Press.
But before that, they must compete against nine other teams and present a strict six-minute pitch, followed by a rigorous Q&A session, to be crowned the Champion of Champions and take home a share of the fund, depending on the award(s) received.
Emily and Wan Yun set up LightHouse, a UK based company focused on creating positive change in the UK using modern and innovative tracking software solutions. LightHouse’s first product, North Star, targets the health and wellbeing industry.
It consists of a discreet, magnetic, clippable tracker that is paired with tracking software that is usable on desktop and mobile devices. North Star’s purpose is to keep vulnerable people safe while also protecting their privacy.
The software uses safe zones, where the person’s specific location is not disclosed until they leave these zones. To enable faster rescue response, North Star incorporates a trusted contact feature. This allows carers and guardians to share the location of the vulnerable person to these contacts via What3Words, a special geocoding system used by the emergency services to identify locations.
Emily explains more about how they identified a market gap for their tracking solution: "We were inspired to find a solution to the problem of wandering by people with dementia and autism due to our personal experiences and the distressing statistics in this area.
"There are many stories of tracking technology being used to find and save people from dangerous situations, and this got us thinking. Our product North Star will make a difference by preventing wandering with vulnerable people, using safer talking technologies.
"We've met so many amazing people, and even if we don't win we've got so much from this. We got to go to London, had a coaching session with a professional businessman. It'll definitely help with our professional development.
"It'd be a great way to celebrate the hard work that we've done if we win".
Wan Yun says it can have an emotional and financial benefit: "It actually provides a solution to the family and carer, but we also found out through our survey that it could reduce the labour costs for care homes.
"We plan to do it as a monthly subscription, which could save on costs for those care homes. For me it's about the experience, especially as an international student in the UK".