Students from the University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art picked up 1st and 2nd prizes at the Scottish Institute for Enterprise Business Plan Competition yesterday (7 March).

Red Button Design, led by James Brown, Nicky Pang and Amanda Jones, were awarded the first prize of £16,000 of cash an in-kind support for their innovative Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System. Sounds Good Advertising were the runners up, receiving £9,000 for their audio/visual light box.

Open to all students and recent graduates from across Scotland the SIE competition received a record number of entries this year but for the third year in a row it was a University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art business that took the first prize in the undergraduate category.

Following in the footsteps of previous winners Barhand and Oyo Products, Red Button Design have developed a product which could bring relief to the 1.2 billion people around the world who are still without clean water.

Their product, ROSS, is an innovative water sanitation, transport and storage device specifically tailored to suit the demanding requirements of a user resident in a developing country. ROSS enables individuals to collect water from the nearest source, contaminated or not, and sanitize for drinking or bathing use.

Sam Mehuex, the brains behind Sounds Good Advertising, followed up his final three position in the Biggart Baillie Innovation Award with a runner up spot in the SIE competition.

Sam has devised an innovative audio/visual light box unit which allows any member of the public to use mp3 headphones to interact with brands by listening to advertisements and information as and when they want. As well as offering images and bluetooth interactivity the light box benefits the environment offering a cleaner alternative to fly posting.

Greig Sinclair, Student Enterprise Manager at the University of Glasgow said, 'It is wonderful that both Red Button and Sounds Good have continued our outstanding level of success in the SIE awards. It is further proof that the University of Glasgow develops the most innovative and entrepreneurial students in Scotland.' PDE is a split course across both Glasgow University and ,

Martin Shannon (m.shannon@admin.gla.ac.uk)

Further information: Louise O'Neill, Web Marketing Officer University of Glasgow, Tel: 0141-330 2730 Email: l.o'neill@enterprise.gla.ac.uk

First published: 8 March 2007