Dragons’ Den 2017

Friday saw the 2017 BioEmployability and Enterprise class take part in the annual Dragons’ Den.

Contrary to previous years, this Dragons’ Den wasn’t marked- it was however compulsory.

Having past years talk about how great this workshop is, the class entered with high exceptions; curious about what would await them.

The 8 hour long workshop had many different tasks that the class would have to undertake.

The Tasks

Groups:

The class was split randomly by numbers into groups. This was designed so that the likelihood of working with people they knew or were close to was limited; in order to replicate a real-life scenario.

Founding a company:

Nearly everyone in the group agreed on the idea of a reptile cafe, however one person really liked the idea of paper made from algae. The group disagreed with this on the basis that it hadn’t been done yet so not only did we not know customer demand, but we also didn’t have an idea of start-up costs.

After a fierce debate the team agreed on the snake cafe, on the grounds that algae-guy got to name the company, ”Serpents Chauds” i.e. ”Hot Snakes” in French.

Business Plan:

This involved determining the target audience, advertising, demand, and costings… thinking outside the box to everything from floor-cleaner, first-aid training and WiFi costs, right through to rent for a small-scale shop in Bangor.

The aim was to end up with a plan of costings, feasibility, potential customers, and projected profit for the first year and beyond.

This was, unsurprisingly, more complicated than expected and required a lot of work and research.

Advert:

A screenshot of the two final frames of our advert.

Great fun was had creating this, and it was actually shot in one take! Having the ability to use a live snake was wonderful and definitely a USP!

Most members took-on roles which they weren’t necessarily comfortable with in an effort to reach out of their comfort zones.

Presentation:

None of the team were particularly confident in their presentation skills, but it’s rare to find someone who is. They did their best however, and in the end The Dragons quite liked their unique idea, only to reject it as the company wouldn’t have made a profit due to the high rent in Bangor and the expensive equipment needed.

Thoughts

The workshop being non-assessed definitely made it into something more enjoyable as it took the pressure off- specifically for those groups who perhaps didn’t work as well together as others.

For me, although the grouping was random, I ended up in a team of people that I’m friends with. This made it really difficult to compromise on issues, and also escalated disagreements faster.

This did however make it easier to get on with the tasks as we already knew each other and therefore knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses- which allowed us to work efficiently when pushed for time.

Conclusion

Although the workshop was fundamental in understanding what goes into a business (and thus what goes into a business plan), it was difficult to focus for 8 hours.

There were also deadlines the day after the workshop, so the 8 hours would have been wonderful to focus on fine-tuning other important assessments.

In conclusion, I believe that the workshop, although great, would have been better at the end of the semester on one of the last days before the Christmas holidays.

 

I Don’t Baleen It!

Natalie Cooper, from the National History Museum (NHM) in London, came to Bangor University on Friday to talk about macroevolution & macroecology.

Natalie works on a number of different areas including phylogenetic comparative methods and statistics.

She’s also able to work with over 80 million specimens, including 175,000+ herps.

Currently she’s working on tracking Hope, the new Blue Whale’s, movements before she beached herself.

How?

The baleen of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) Photographer unknown.

Isotopes can be extracted from the whale’s baleen and can be used to track where (roughly) the whale travelled at which points in her life.

This is due to different isotopes being present in different parts of the world, with higher isotope levels being found in warmer oceans (although this changes seasonally).

As a whale’s baleen is constantly growing, the museum have managed to collect around 8 years worth of data.

Why?

Surprisingly from the data, it was detected that the whale changed cycles towards the end of its life and stayed in warmer waters for longer, possibly looking for food.

This implies that she was potentially breast-feeding meaning that the whale’s DNA could still be out in the world somewhere.

Using imaginary data and creating statistical models, it is possible to work out where the whale may have spent the last few years of her life.

This is important as it allows us to understand more about the world’s largest sea animal, and it also helps us to understand why whale’s beach themselves, perhaps preventing more deaths in the future.

How did this influence me?

Hearing from Natalie made me realise that working in a museum is a really smart way to be able to gather data quick and efficiently.

Although museum data has drawbacks, such as locale and I.D. inaccuracies, more data is available in a shorter time period.

The NHM also has on-going schemes for enthusiastic students so it may be possible for me to work with them in order to further my studies.

Conclusion

I believe this is something to look into further as Natalie is able to work with a wide range of different animal groups and species, network completely within the zoological field and have a large range of morphometric data at her fingertips in order to study further.

Judging by how elusive herps can be in the wild, museum specimens could prove invaluable to any data-set to help boost numbers and make results more reliable.

A photograph taken of some of the Singapore Natural History Museum herpetological specimens. Photographer unknown.

 

Bangor University Students Asked to Work

Bangor University Students have been asked to actually pursue an on-going assignment!

All students in Bio Enterprise and Employability (Class 2017/18) have been asked to create a blog.

These blogs will be open to the general public and will be available for prospect employers to scrutinise as they please.

Content of the blogs will consist of 300-500 words on a series of workshops and seminars, which will be presented throughout the year. There will be a minimum of 10 blog posts in total.

Students have been asked to then summarise what they have learnt throughout an 8 month period in the form of 1000 words.

They will be marked on writing style, information, strength of conclusion and overall professionalism of the job.

What’s even more shocking is that 10% of the assignment’s grade rests solely on attendance during seminars… surely this is giving away marks?

An update will be issued at the end of the academic year.