RISE, Qiqqa, Sphericos Biotechnologies and eComm won the four major £5k prizes at tonight’s CUE Entrepreneurs Challenge at Cambridge Union.

RISE won the Social Enterprise £5k-er; Quiqqa the equivalent in the Software, Web and IT section; eComm and Sphericos the two Technology and CleanTech accolades.

Elpida Cambridge Health won the angel’s prize. Two ‘First Step Forward’ prizes for promising tyros went to Touch Africa and Oxbridge Tours.

Twelve teams pitched to a panel of angel investors comprising Charles Cotton, Jonathan Milner, Andy Richards and Ted Shelton. Around 300 teams had originally entered the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs challenge.

RISE – inspired by Baillie Aaron – is an evidence-based program matching court-involved young people with adult coaches. Its mission is to provide role models who can inspire, educate, and expose youth to new opportunities. Through its innovative, activities-led curriculum, Young RISErs will develop critical life skills and educational tools that will empower them to achieve greater success and self-sufficiency – and to stay out of the youth justice system. RISE’s founders have experience in social entrepreneurship, youth education, at-risk youth mentorship program development, and law enforcement. They are both currently pursuing post-graduate degrees in criminology at the University of Cambridge.

Qiqqa – spearheaded by James Jardine – is a software application that helps students and researchers manage and extract maximum value from their research materials. Qiqqa combines innovative technology tools with powerful natural language processing algorithms to give academics the ability to cope with the vast amount of information required in modern research. Qiqqa helps them focus on the important facts, discover related material and improve recall, allowing them to learn faster. Students love Qiqqa because it’s free, but the software has application in industry, too. Qiqqa Premium brings additional features, expanded web storage, group collaboration, and no advertising. Qiqqa makes research fun.

eComm – headed up by Tongyun Li – has high hopes of commercial success: Due to severe signal penetration loss, large buildings blocks have increasing demand for in-building infrastructures to provide wireless services (3G, Wifi and etc). Most recent market research forecasts worldwide deployment revenues from in-building wireless systems to grow from $3.8 billion in 2007 to over $15bn in 2013. Distributed antenna systems (DAS) is an attractive approach for improving radio coverage in buildings. However, traditional DAS suffers from a requirement for high linearity, dynamic range and energy consumption. Using digital signal processing techniques, eComm says it has demonstrated a high efficient digital DAS system with dynamic range over 60dB and reduced data rate of 208 times. A reconfigurable digital system and high energy efficiency lead to significant reduction in both construction and maintenance costs, it says.

Sphericos Biotechnologies, masterminded by CEO Faisal Khan with Shah Rukh Abbas as CTO, is promoting the cause of safer insecticides of biological origin and seeks to raise $300,000 to launch its project. It has introduced a novel approach for the production of 'green' bio-insecticides that will compete in the current market by escaping stringent regulatory restrictions through its eco-friendly nature, higher efficiency and decreased production costs through the use of recycled agricultural wastes. The launch of Sphericos Vault, an online information database of all Sphericos Custom products, will attract universities, governmental and non-governmental organisations to collaborate with Sphericos in the fight against mosquitoes and malaria.

Angel prize winner Elpida Cambridge Health (led by Muntaqa Umar-sadiq, Lu Tan, Michael Freeman) says its vision is to provide aggregated POC diagnostic tools for the early detection and rapid diagnosis of the major infectious diseases affecting the developing world. Its flagship product, Elpida Diagnostic Toolbox (EDT) will equip mobile doctors who visit rural communities to provide care, with an innovative toolbox that combines POC diagnostic tools with pictorial guides expressed in local dialects that empower patients to take ownership of their management plans. Maximising the impact of mobile doctor visits unlocks an important solution to rural healthcare.

‘First Step Forward’ winners were Touch of Africa and Oxbridge Tours.They didn’t make the grand finals shortlist but were deemed to have made most progress from the ‘best of the rest’ among original entrants.

Headed by Sela Motshwane, Touch of Africa introduces a fashion range for  African ex-pats and western consumers. The business is a reflection of a growing trend, as African-inspired designs are showcased in London and New York fashion weeks. Initially the business will import existing ranges from Southern Africa and target small fashion boutiques to build interest and gauge the market, particularly in cosmopolitan areas. Once established, larger retail chains will be approached with the range, creating a strong brand and ultimately bringing African fashion to a wider market.

Oxbridge Tours, led by Chris Dobbing and Andrey Pronin, is a social enterprise founded to help students fund the rising cost of education by giving academic and cultural tours of Oxford and Cambridge to corporate groups, schools and tourists.The partners said: “Our triple bottom line centres on: People - We pay more than double market rate and give hands-on management experience; Planet - We recycle and encourage clients to use public transport. Profit - We support student events, societies and bursary schemes.
“We aim to be the market leader for walking tours in Cambridge within 36 months and franchise to similar cities worldwide.”

• Photograph shows: Baillie Aaron