A huge thank you to everyone that has supported ilumus through its first 6 months!

At the University of Sussex Student Union's annual "Cheers!" Awards Evening on the 28th April, ilumus beat off competition from six other outstanding new University of Sussex societies to be made "Best New Society 2005-2006". This puts the society in an excellent position to keep up its work of supporting student enterprise in the coming years. Please read on for details of the achievements the society made to help it win this award.

ilumus – The University of Sussex student enterprise and entrepreneurship society. Set up to support students, staff and alumni in the development of ideas for ventures in business and social enterprise.

Introduction:

In the few short months since the society’s inception in November 2005 ilumus has made more achievements than many societies would expect to over an entire year. In the following sections below we outline a just a few of these achievements, particularly focusing on the relationships we have developed with a variety of different individuals and organisations and the activities that our members have been involved in.

Relationships:

Sussex Students involved in ilumus:

• ilumus has a following of over 120 students subscribed to our email newsletters.

• A total of over 50 individuals have attended ilumus meetings, with representatives from almost every school and department in the University.

• 15 core, multidisciplined, members, attend weekly meetings and are involved in the organisation of the society.

• The society has continued a trend of growth welcoming new members to each of its weekly Tuesday meetings over the past 10 weeks.

Organisations we have developed partnerships with to the point that they have offered support to ilumus include:

• The University Regional Development Office, the University’s ‘Enterprise Champions’. ilumus has supported the Office’s successful Enterprise Thursday series of lectures. ilumus has secured over £700 of support towards marketing and development of the society.

• The Sussex Innovation Centre. ilumus has secured Virtual Tenancy of this prestigious University owned business incubator giving Sussex students unprecedented direct access to its facilities.

• The Career Development and Employment Centre. ilumus has worked with CDEC on a variety of workshops and activities, making more students aware of the services they provide.

• University of Sussex Students Union. As well as being a recognised society of USSU ilumus has developed links with the Union’s commercial services arm to explore ways in which our income generating ventures can benefit the wider student body.

• Sussex IP, the university’s intellectual property management company. ilumus formed a relationship that gives more students free direct access to professional advice about idea protection and commercialisation.

• Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU) ilumus has benefited from support and advice from a range of academics from SPRU specialising in management and entrepreneurship.

• ACUMEN-UK. ilumus was represented at the autumn meeting for UK student enterprise societies and is now a recognised member society of the organisation.

• Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Creativity. ilumus members will be involved in this new centre that is currently being set up jointly with the University of Brighton thanks to a £3.5million government grant.

• University Alumni and Development Office. ilumus has built up a relationship with the directors of the alumni office in order to contact entrepreneurs that are Sussex alumni to come and inspire current students.

Activities:

• We have organised weekly meetings every Tuesday during term time that have been a consistent success in helping people continue to move their ideas forward.

• We helped ensure that Sussex submitted more ideas to the South East England Mad Ideas Competition than any other university with 4 ilumus members making it through to the next round.

• A team of 8 ilumus members out-performed other university entrants at the regional Yomping the Nations competition in the autumn term.

• Three ilumus members sat on and contributed to the University’s Enterprise Strategy Meeting in November.

• ilumus attended the LSE Dragon’s Den event in November as VIP guests.

• ilumus organised an end-of-term open forum before Christmas giving students the opportunity to hear directly from and speak to members of our partner organisations.

• ilumus conducted a survey of student interest in enterprise during the January Re-freshers Fair. 100 participants provided valuable information about Sussex students’ enterprising ambitions.

• ilumus was used as a case study demonstrating the potential for enterprise within the university environment. This was published by the South East England Development Agency and distributed worldwide.

• In January six ilumus members secured places on a week long residential enterprise course run at the University of Durham by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning.

• ilumus successfully attracted over 20 Sussex students to the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship’s Wake up to Enterprise event. This not only proved to be a highly insightful experience for all involved but also secured an additional £100 of funding for the society.

• ilumus has referred 10 students and alumni with well developed ideas to the expert advisors of our partner organisations, giving them the support they need to make their ventures succeed.

The Future:

ilumus is now recognised as the hub for enterprising student activity at Sussex and has one of the highest profiles amongst groups of other university enterprise societies including the likes of Cambridge, Warwick, LSE, Surrey and Brighton. However we are intent on achieving a great deal more in future years.

The new five strong board recently elected to manage ilumus over the next year have their sights firmly on the development of social enterprises at Sussex that have the potential to bring more revenue into USSU. We are currently looking at how we might work with the USSU’s commercial services arm to explore how we can generate income that will result in benefits for student groups as a whole.