Pank prize to booming business
by Andrew Lees
UniSA
student Edward Lane is confident he can turn a bright idea into a
booming business thanks to the Pank Prize for entrepreneurship.
Lane’s winning business, called Glowing Concepts, is all about advising, designing and installing landscape garden illumination. If you thought that was a flooded marketplace then think again.
Lane had the idea after a desire for some garden lighting revealed an almost complete lack of advice, a gap just waiting for an ambitious young man to fill.
“Garden lighting seemed a relatively simple idea and I couldn’t believe there was nobody to offer advice,” he said. “People sold the products, but didn’t offer advice on design and installation.
“Part of what UniSA has taught me is to look for market opportunities and take that opportunity in to the market place, so it got me thinking.”
The Pank Prize, worth $10,000, is administered by the Division of Business on behalf of UniSA and is made available by the Pank Family Trust. To enter, UniSA students have to present a business plan to a panel of five judges, with the winner receiving both the money and invaluable experience.
Lane, who had “absolutely no experience” with garden lighting, originally presented the business plan in a course calling for a fictitious small business model.
The prize will allow Lane and his partner to get their business up and running straight out of university, an invaluable advantage in the cut-throat world of business.
“Beginning a business straight out of uni is a risky idea unless you have some sort of financial backing,” he said. “You don’t have the confidence to get a business off the ground without it. That’s where the Pank Prize came in.”
Podiatry students Vanessa Kao and Naomi Zakarias were runners-up in the prize with their plan to set up a mobile podiatry service for nursing homes on the Eyre Peninsula.
Kao said they were delighted to have been involved in the prize. They were keen to follow up their idea, but had put plans on hold while they settle into their new professional roles in rural South Australia.
Entry to the Pank Prize is open to all UniSA students who have drawn up a business plan as part of their studies.