Moving Mountains Micro Awards
Moving Mountains is back!! We are welcoming entries to our Inspire Launch Grow Moving Mountains Micro Awards.
Enter your inspiring story and win a £500 prize and have your story featured at the event!
Now closed
How it works
-
Enter the competition by the deadline of 10:00 am on 27 March 2023 GMT.
-
To apply we asking to submit either a 3-minute video or a 500-word story.
-
Tell us why you deserve the award. Not why you need the money.
How to enter
-
For all students and recent graduates (up to 2 years after graduation).
-
To apply you must complete this form before the deadline of 10:00 am on 27 March 2023 GMT.
-
Please note you will not be able to save progress on this form.
-
If you are alumni and do not have the UUN credentials, you can still submit an application.
-
If you have any questions, please contact Christina at christina.starko@ei.ed.ac.uk
Winners
-
Winners will receive £500. If you are successful, the prize money can be used at your discretion.
-
Your story will also be featured at the event.
Categories
All applications will be reviewed by a panel made up of the Enterprise Services team. In some cases, a business adviser may nominate an entrant for Inspire Launch Grow Moving Mountains Micro Awards if they are already working with the team.
Best Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion initiative
-
How does your business lead the way in creating an inclusive, fulfilling work environment that represents the wider society and is a truly welcoming place for marginalized groups? Our judges would love to hear about you!
Creative Enterprise of the Year
- Are you a freelancer, a creative small business, an Etsy seller, or maybe you just have a stall at a market? If so, we want to hear about you and your business and how your creativity helped you along the way.
Awards Ceremony
The winners will be announced at our prestigious Inspire Launch Grow Awards Ceremony on 08 June 2023 from 3:00pm-6:30pm at Potterrow – The Dome.
We aim to make this event a celebration of our students and alumni entrepreneurial success, while giving attendees the opportunity to connect and form new partnerships and collaborations.
Invitees include University of Edinburgh entrepreneurs, alumni, entrepreneurial organisations, business people, partners, investors and university colleagues. If you are not a finalist, but would like to attend Inspire Launch Grow Awards please register here.
The Inspire Launch Grow Awards are an opportunity to receive that recognition and during the event, attendees will have the opportunity to share their business ideas and stories with our enterprise community.
Founders: Josephine Jay, Addie Bara and Hannah Feben-Smith
Jo, Hannah, and Addie are three Chinese adoptees who started “Whatever Next?”, a project which highlights and amplifies adoptee voices by sharing insights from their daily lives and helping to create a better understanding of adoption and connect those interested or involved in the adoptee experience. They strike to positively impact the adoptive community while challenging misconceptions.
Our names are Jo, Hannah, and Addie, and we are three Chinese adoptees who grew up in the UK and US and met in Edinburgh in 2019. We are part of an ever-evolving group of around 145,000 Chinese children adopted abroad, now young adults who are tackling adulthood and all the trials that come with it.
Adoption can be an isolating experience that affects mental health and feeling of self-worth, with adoptees being four times more likely to attempt suicide than non-adoptees. A common thread we found from talking to other adoptees was a fractured sense of identity, where connecting different parts of our identities was often difficult. That’s why we created Whatever Next?, a podcast and artwork project that shares insights into our daily lives as Chinese adoptees to create a better understanding of the adoptee experience.
We raise awareness for and improve adoptee mental health in a time where adoption is fast becoming a more popular option for prospective parents and yet remains a largely unexplored and unknown topic. We believe that these conversations should not be limited to Chinese adoptees and should be expanded to include our friends, family, and loved ones. We want to address the culture of silence that has dominated the lives of generations of adoptees both internationally and domestically.
Founders: Fraser MacDonald and Nathaniel Cartier
Nat and I were sitting outside a cafe on the meadows, chatting about the creative scene in Edinburgh, when a passer-by heard us and commented "creative scene, ha what creative scene?!" This somewhat surprised us, and we explained that both of us were very active musicians, and thought Edinburgh had a great scene.
We explained our idea; a community interest company that served to bring people together, to start collaborating on some cool projects, and challenge the opinion that Edinburgh's creative scene is lacking. Upon hearing this, they told us how much they liked the idea, and immediately went on to show us several local bands that we should contact - pretty much proving our point!
The Edinburgh Collective was officially registered in January 2021, and since then we have offered Edinburgh creatives free recording and song writing sessions, some of which have been performed live and released on Spotify and other streaming platforms. We are in the process of collaborating with Edinburgh City Council, Chris Rutterford (the muralist behind the Colinton tunnel), the RSPB, several local schools in the area, and the wider Meadows and Bruntsfield Links community, to design and paint a mural that captures the lifestyle of the area.
We’ve had strangers recognise the Edinburgh Collective on the street, and end up recording a song in the Ratcliffe Studio that day! At one of our events a guitarist found the pianist they were looking for to join their funk band, others met a photographer whose style they love. The Edinburgh Collective is creating relationships that benefit everyone and the full Edinburgh scene.
