Flying start for young entrepreneur

Dr Thomas Whitfield of Oxford University has been marked out as one of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, being selected as one of this year’s Flying Start Global Entrepreneurs by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE).

Dr Whitfield has already launched one successful business while a graduate student at the University of Oxford, and is beginning work on a second now that he has completed his DPhil degree at the University’s Department of Biochemistry.

Eleven graduates from universities in England and Northern Ireland have been selected as Flying Start Global Entrepreneurs for showing the best prospects to be entrepreneurs behind innovative, high-growth UK businesses.

They will fly to the US this week to be hosted for six months by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world’s biggest entrepreneurship foundation. They will visit several of America’s most active entrepreneurial universities, including Harvard and MIT, Stanford (and Silicon Valley), and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Each Global Entrepreneur will also spend four months on placement with an innovative US company.

Dr Whitfield will use the experience to hit the ground running with a new venture on returning to the UK in the summer. He is currently working with colleagues on a new treatment for male pattern baldness that is in the product development stage.

‘The NCGE Flying Start Global Entrepreneur programme is a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the entrepreneurial culture in the US at the same time as building up a business,’ says Dr Whitfield.

‘The experience gained will help me in the challenge of launching a globally operating, technology-based business,’ he adds.‘On my return, I hope to launch a well structured and financed venture in the UK.’

In 2007, Dr Whitfield was a winner of Idea Idol, a competition staged by the student group Oxford Entrepreneurs at the Saïd Business School. He delivered a two minute 'elevator' pitch with two of his friends from the University of Munich to create a website featuring a virtual timeline where users can reserve a moment to post their memorable experiences.

Two of the judges were so impressed that they offered to back the idea through their own investment fund. They promised 'whatever it takes' to ensure his idea became a commercial success. The website www.miomi.com was launched in the summer of 2007 with backing from Brightstation Ventures and cooperation agreements with companies including Microsoft UK, the Wikimedia Foundation and the British Library.

'During his time at Oxford, Dr Whitfield has shown everything needed to become a successful entrepreneur,' says Professor Tim Cook, visiting professor of science entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School and former managing director of Isis Innovation, the University of Oxford's technology transfer company. 'He was a deserved winner in the Idea Idol competition and it is no surprise to me that he has now been selected as a Flying Start Global Entrepreneur. I have no doubt he has a bright future ahead of him.'