Systems EngD researcher's Social Enterprise project wins award

(28 June 2013) - Growing People, a Bristol-based Community Interest Company, established by Systems Centre EngD research engineer Matt Montgomery, won an £8,000 runner-up prize in the University of Bristol's annual business challenge competition, the New Enterprise Competition.

The 2013 competition has a prize fund of over £30,000 to be shared by its winners, who were announced at the Enterprise dinner, held on 25 June in the Wills Memorial Building. The ten finalists had to submit a 20 page report and give a presentation pitching their ideas to a panel, in order to be in with a chance of winning.

Growing People was established in 2013 to provide young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with an opportunity for employment and access to funding for further and higher education in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects. Matt says:

"We believe that with the right opportunities and support we can incentivise young people to ‘grow themselves’ to become more educated, employable and have better ‘soft’ skills’. The programme will allow more equal access to education, employment and life opportunities.

"Through the ‘Earn to Learn’ scheme, we can help subsidise the cost of education to the individual through employment. We use a problem based learning method which aims to give practical applications of STEM subjects to help learning and skill development preparing young people for further education and the job market.

"Our first project is the utilisation of restaurant and cafe waste to produce high value produce to sell back to the local restaurant trade. Our unique ‘Pop- Up Farm’ takes advantage of- temporarily derelict land within the city centre. As the company develops we will implement other businesses in order to offer a wide range of employment opportunities for our student group such as renewable energy production and sustainable land management."

Matt joined Halcrow in 2008 after a successful three year period managing an environmental consultancy in Manchester, LK Pollution Response, part of the LK Group. Matt was brought in to Halcrow to research how the interactions of issues within the built environment can be understood and systems developed that maximise the beneficial outcomes whilst minimising, if not preventing, the negative. This includes how organisational culture effects knowledge management and the effect that this has on innovation, creativity and ultimately the provision of solutions to sustainability problems that are genuinely regenerative to social, environmental and financial capitals.