This year, the University of Birmingham celebrated the tenth anniversary of its Postgraduate Summer School, with Health Exchange responsible for setting the week-long challenge.
During the intensive five days, 30 postgraduates were split into five teams and asked to respond to some authentic business questions posed by our Assistant Director, Jennifer Jones-Rigby.
The challenge was introduced by Professor Gavin Schaffer, before Steve Harris outlined the aims and structure of the course which would include seminars on Business Modelling, Sales Strategy, Finance and Stakeholder Profiling. Jennifer would deliver talks on Health Exchange broadly, outlining our ethos, values and the way we work.
The tasks facing students involved building an innovative App for diabetes prevention, creating cost-effective wellness programs to ensure the health and wellbeing of clients in the West Midlands and to design an employee resilience App that readied long-term unemployment individuals for the rigours of future employment.
The course culminated with each group presenting their concept in front of a Dragons’ Den style panel consisting of Jennifer (Health Exchange), Chris Meah (previous winner), Paula Whitehouse (Goldman Sachs Programme) and Steve Harris (University of Birmingham).
The marking criteria focussed on aspects such as feasibility, cost, practicality, presentation and how closely it aligned with Health Exchanges overarching principles.
On the final day, after all presentations had been delivered, the panels’ agonising decision was made, and first prize was awarded to Health Kicks who were presented with a trophy and some shopping vouchers.
Reflecting on the experience, Jennifer commented: “It was an absolute pleasure to work with University of Birmingham and to have been nominated as the business to set the PESS Challenge 2015.
“The winning team Health Kicks brought to the table a new and fresh way of looking at how we might develop our App offer across a range of potential customer needs.”
Watch a video of the final day highlights here or scroll down to view some pictures taken throughout the week.
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