Worcester MBA student Paige Preston picked up funding and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor’s award in this year’s All-Innovate ideas competition organised by EnSpire Oxford, the University’s entrepreneurship hub.

All-Innovate is the University of Oxford’s idea competition, aiming to encourage students and staff to develop their entrepreneurial skills, and the Hilary Term showcase celebrated the completion of this year’s programme. Entrepreneurs, students and members of the local startup community gathered at Reuben College to explore programme participants’ business model canvases, listen to their pitches and cast their votes for the most promising business ideas.

Paige Preston, completing her MBA at Worcester and the Saïd Business School, was one of the competition winners and was honoured with an additional award from Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Lionel Tarassenko for her GetAhead platform.

As an intuitive visual platform, GetAhead seeks to demystify personal finance by making it accessible and make it fun when it matters most (when you’re young!). Across socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, career paths and life experiences, there’s a fundamental truth that knowing and understanding “money stuff” doesn’t come easy. While figuring it out, there’s no one way that people build the foundation for their financial futures. What many find down the line is that despite years of trying to “get ahead” on their financial goals, they find they just fall behind – a problem Paige’s platform seeks to address.

As a competition designed to foster early-stage entrepreneurial thinking, All-Innovate provided participants with the opportunity to develop, refine, and present their innovative ideas through a startup ideation platform. Participants also had access to a series of entrepreneurial training sessions, equipping them with the skills needed to create a compelling business model canvas while expanding their professional networks.