Help a Southampton student go GLOBAL

A go-getting Southampton student has won a business competition in Chile while on his year abroad, and needs your vote to take it to the next level.

Jamie Furlong entered a Start-Up competition with a business idea and made it through to the Global Start-Up Battle.

He led his team of three business-minded Chileans and another Southampton student, Gavin Fielding, to success as they developed a concept over one weekend.

Their victory will put them up against teams from all over the world in more than 250 cities.

The concept is a social media platform called SkillSwap, which allows people to trade skills with no money involved.

Jamie mixed it up a bit while pitching the idea in front of a judging panel. He said:

The pitch itself made me laugh. Even though I was aware that I could have done the whole presentation in English because the judges could speak it, I started doing it in Spanish digging a hole for myself.

The team could now win the chance to launch the business in a premier location in Silicon Valley where companies like Google and Facebook have their headquarters, plus many more business-building opportunities.

Jamie hadn’t expected much from the competition. He said:

I had seen the idea done badly in the past, and thought it would be a fun thing to work on during the weekend. I wasn’t bothered about winning or losing.

But I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved. This means that we are now representing the University of Southampton on a global scale. It’s incredible!

The next stage of the competition is primarily based on votes. Help two Southampton students rise to global success by following this link and follow Jamie’s blog to keep up to date.

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