Success Stories
Interview with George Dunlop, Co-Founder & Director of Partnerships, Quantum Dice
I was graduating from an MMath in Mathematics and Statistics in 2019. I was attending the Careers Service Startup fair out of interest and they were advertising a summer programme I could get early experience in starting something myself.
My experience had been prior to University. I founded a start-up while at school as part of Young Enterprise UK which has won regional enterprise awards and later interned at a Series A recruitment startup in London upon graduation.
It showed that entrepreneurship was possible for graduates and provides support should participants wish.
Our team chose to take Quantum Dice forward as a business. We used the StEP convertible note from Oxford Science Enterprises to further the prototyping of the technology. Since then the team has gone from strength to strength securing multiple awards along with Innovate UK support, early pilots and private investment. The key milestone being early adopter interest.
The STEP programme introduced an entirely new area of the Oxford ecosystem and opened up new field in the commercialisation of university research that is often not accessible to undergraduates. The early investment in and support of student enterprise is unheard of within the field and is a unique opportunity.
Twofold. 1) Get to know your cohort of students and the mentors, it is a unique opportunity to get to know individuals from all over the University with a different and unique perspective, irrespective of where you think you are headed this is a network you will seek advice from in the years to come
2) Take a close look at the portfolio of research that is provided. These are the result of years of work by highly experienced researchers that students are given the opportunity to create business cases for.
