The competition is run by the Entrepreneurship Centre in collaboration with all Oxford colleges. Eligible students (undergraduate, postgraduate and DPhil) pitch their entrepreneurial ideas for a chance to win a share of £30,000.
Quyen entered the competition with the idea of building an app that provides an up-to-date visual map of cases of infectious diseases and also arms travellers with a personalised risk assessment report and recommendations on ways to protect themselves before and during travel.
Speaking about the competition Quyen said,
“The idea came when I was sitting in class listening to Prof. Paul Turner, COMRU director talking about his work on antimicrobial resistance and tracking the genomic evolution of disease pathogens. As a 1+1 Pershing Square scholar, it is a privilege to be able to benefit from both programmes, to use research to fuel global health solutions and use entrepreneurship mindset to scale them up.”
As seen with Covid-19, travel carries the risk of catching infections and of passing diseases onto others. By providing visual data of infectious disease cases, travellers can make appropriate choices of relevant vaccines, and take preventive measures beyond the normal travel requirement for entry. Last but not least, the app also allows travellers to connect to a network of travel clinics that caters to foreigners for travel-specific health services.
Watch the competition submission entry.
In 2021, IHTM student, Dennis Mazingi, won the competition with his team. His idea was an e-motorcycle delivery business to help retail stores and small business to deliver efficiently and reduce environmental impact in Zimbabwe.