Garage menu makes final

By ELLEN READ

A home business producing and marketing Indian food is one of the eclectic lineup of new business ventures picked for the final round of Auckland University's Entrepreneurship Challenge - Spark.

From a commercial kitchen attached to their garage, father and son team Kanti and Manoj Patel make three traditional Indian foods - roast peanuts, chutneys and pickles and spice mixes. At the moment, they sell them locally to Indian food suppliers and in one Pak'n'Save outlet, but the duo aim to take on the world.

They have invented a unique - and secret - method to process traditional Indian roasted nuts and will also market spice mixes and pickles.

Manoj Patel, a fourth-year medical student, said the aim was to take traditional Indian products and adapt them to Kiwi tastes.

Father Kanti Patel is the product developer and cook. His aim is to use fresh NZ produce so that when the business hopefully moves towards exporting in coming years, it can capitalise on the clean, green image.

Joining Manoraj Enterprises in the final 10 are biotechnology software, oyster farming technology, a flat-hunting website, weather forecasting technology, an English-teaching product for Koreans, two advanced engineering technology products and a new specialty retail concept.

The Spark competition is a student-led initiative aimed at turning first-class ideas into world-class businesses. It is based on similar competitions at the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The finalists, found after a semester of lectures and presentations, were chosen for the commercial potential of their ventures. The 20-person judging panel included successful New Zealand entrepreneurs, technology experts, venture capitalists and industry sector specialists.

Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre director Peter Hiscocks, who advised the university on Spark, said the finalists had the potential to make a difference to New Zealand's growth and economic performance.

More than 100 participants from 41 teams entered Spark's $40,000 Challenge. The 10 finalists will receive extensive mentoring over three months to help develop their ideas into robust business plans.

The winning team, to be announced on October 23, receives a prize valued at $30,000.

The prizemoney must be used to develop the proposed venture. As an added bonus, all finalists have the opportunity to present to angel investors and venture capitalists.

Spark was launched in May with a free course run over 13 weeks called Vision to Business.

Taught by Business School staff and real-world practitioners, the sessions delivered to more than 500 students and staff the kinds of entrepreneurial skills needed to foot it in the business world.

They covered choosing a business idea, intellectual property rights, marketing and financing.

The 10 finalists

AquaGrow: A cost-effective, environmentally friendly, versatile and durable initiative for the oyster farming industry. It consists of rails that have a simple locking mechanism, allowing easy placement and removal of oyster growing sticks.

Contactless Power Supply: A self-enclosed system that will enable contactless transfer of electric power to any device without plugging into the mains or using batteries.

FlatmatesNZ.com: A start-up website designed to help people in New Zealand find better flats and flatmates.

GridX: Grid Extreme, a technological breakthrough that aims to make super-computation solutions affordable for small- and medium-sized organisations.

Leaf Tea Salon: The concept is a bookshop and cafe combining books and tea, the quieter life, and aiming to become a cultural centre for locals and visitors.

Manoraj Enterprises: Producing three popular traditional Indian foods.

Pacific Bioinformatics: Developing a knowledge-management solution for scientific organisations by integrating publicly available databases with proprietary in-house resources for greater insight, increased productivity and faster commercialisation of research.

TeamRWSD: A weather station device that can provide information on meteorological conditions at remote locations.

Transliterate: An online multilevel English language program targeted at Korean tweens (aged from 8 to 14 years).

Volfe Advanced Forced Induction: Turbocharged engines are the most efficient in the world. However, the technology has one major flaw - turbocharger lag, or the time it takes the turbocharger to start introducing useful power. Volfe has produced an inexpensive, robust and elegant solution to the turbocharger lag problem .