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DMU Graduates’ Start-Ups To Boost Business In Africa

Five enterprising and socially aware De Montfort University (DMU) graduates have secured a contract with a Leicestershire-based initiative to help new businesses thrive in Africa and other developing areas.

The five graduates will bring the skills of their two start-up businesses based at DMU’s Innovation Centre to aid the Geo-POD non-governmental organisation (NGO) to boost education, health and employment in disadvantaged regions.

The Geo-POD initiative aims to adapt used shipping containers into building blocks of sustainable development; providing secure access to training, health services and employment.

The two start-up firms, Whiteroom Productions and Ten Five Design, have won the project to rebrand and redesign Geo-Pod’s website, adding animation and video and exploiting the potential of social networking to add momentum to the project.

Whiteroom and Ten Five Design share a studio at DMU’s Innovation Centre and often collaborate. Whiteroom is primarily a web and interactive design firm and Ten Five provides graphic design and illustration, and in particular develops graphic and animated characters.

Ten Five Design was set up at the start of 2008 by Peter Popham and Martin Lewis. Whiteroom Productions is run by Jack Everard, Jamie Standbridge and John Hammond and began business life last summer. All five are aged between 21 and 24 and graduated from DMU in the summer of 2007.

Geo-POD has been developed as a concept over the past three years by John Coster, of Kibworth. He is liaising with several departments at DMU on various aspects of the Geo-POD, such as design and engineering. He said: “I expect to work with Jack and the other guys for a long time to come. We met at the right moment, as we now have a management team, an investor lined up and a marketing strategy.”

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