Students from The University of Exeter advance to the final of Keyloop’s 2022 Dealer Tech Competition
Team ‘ExeTerminators’ from The University of Exeter received £1,000 along with all 10 additional semi-finalists, and move forward to Keyloop’s grand final
March 2022: Keyloop, the global automotive technology company, has announced the individual university winners of the second annual Keyloop Dealer Tech competition. Over 1,000 students from leading universities registered their interest in the competition.
4 students; Barnaby Gill, Ryan Storey, Oskar Oramus and Isaac Cheng from The University of Exeter formed the team ‘ExeTerminators’. Their idea was to create a web application that provides insights into people's travel habits including suggestions to reduce the environmental impact.
The ExeTerminators commented:
“We found out about the Keyloop Dealer Tech competition through our student startup community manager at the University of Exeter. We saw an opportunity to develop a solution that would help people’s everyday lives. After looking at the existing solutions on the market, we identified a gap in the market to target our idea towards. The competition has been a great experience for us to develop a project from the ground up. Pitching to the Keyloop Dealer Tech judges encouraged us to practice our presentation and public speaking skills. We had to consider all aspects of our project like the target audience, leading competitors, and commercial business case.”
Jeni Reeve, Student Startups Community Manager at The University of Exeter added:
“Taking part in the Keyloop Dealer Tech Competition for the past two years has been of great benefit to our students, bringing together multidisciplinary teams to develop innovative solutions to existing problems in a market relatively unknown to many of our undergraduates. Aside from a generous prize fund which of course proves a unique opportunity to gain initial investment in an idea, Keyloop has offered students insight into the working world of tech innovation with expert advice and mentoring from their team. The competition has also provided a platform upon which students can practice entrepreneurial competencies from idea generation and market validation process through to developing a business model and honing a pitch. We hope that experiences like these will support students as they explore intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial ventures following their time at University of Exeter.”
Following several university judging days over the past three weeks, six finalists have been selected from the university winners to progress to the international final, where they will compete to win the £10,000 prize (or local currency equivalent).
The six grand finalists are:
King’s College London, team: Christian Grinling
The University of Manitoba, team: EasyCar
The University of Exeter, team: ExeTerminators
The University of Bath, team: Tom Christensen
The University of Warwick, team: The Testroyers
Munster Technological University, team: REVVV
The Keyloop Dealer Tech competition provides an opportunity for students to team up with their friends, network with industry professionals, gain new skills and win big prizes. The initiative was founded by Keyloop in 2021 to encourage innovation in automotive retail amongst the next generation of car buyers, and to promote the industry as an exciting and dynamic career choice for students.The 2022 competition was open to teams from leading universities across the UK, Ireland and Canada, and has unearthed some strong STEM and business talent, as demonstrated by the quality of the final presentations.
Tom Kilroy, CEO, Keyloop comments:
“We created the Keyloop Dealer Tech competition to nurture new talent and encourage them to discover the great career possibilities which exist within the automotive retail industry. In 2022 the competition equipped all our entries with new skills and experiences to help them succeed in the competitive graduate employment space. We have provided masterclasses and mentorship in business strategy, product design and development and in return we are seeing some truly ground-breaking ideas that could have a very positive impact on the way consumers buy, service or use cars.
This year’s competition saw each student team tasked with developing an innovative tech-focused product idea that could make an impact on the automotive retail industry. The 30 successful proposals progressed to the ‘Idea development phase’, during which students built out their proposals into product ideas, with the help of industry experts, learning materials and mentors.
They were then asked to present their ideas to a panel of expert judges at Keyloop. The presentations were done in professional settings and included a demonstration of the product, plus a Q&A to mirror a real-world pitch scenario.
The top-scoring team from each university receives £1,000. Details of all winners can be found below. From all the universities, the six best entries will progress to the grand final, where teams will get the opportunity to present their ideas on 9th March to the full judging panel of Senior Keyloop Leaders and industry experts, where an overall winner will be selected, and receive a further £10,000.
Michelle Wells, Director Brand Strategy and Corporate Communications, Keyloop ends:
“The Keyloop Dealer Tech Competition provides an opportunity for undergraduates to gain first-hand experience of industry challenges, current technology trends and entrepreneurship. It is also an opportunity for them to gain valuable experience with a global automotive technology company that strives to support their future job aspirations. My congratulations go to all the university winners so far for their game-changing ideas, and I look forward to congratulating the international winner.”
The winners of the second annual Keyloop Dealer Tech competition university rounds were:
The University of Bath
Winning team: Tom Christensen
Team members: Tom Christensen
The idea: A platform for consumers to compare and recommend the most suitable electric vehicle based on their typical daily routine.
The University of Bristol
Winning team: EDes
Team members: Kareem ELAHEE DOOMUN, Isfaaq JADAKHAN
The idea: Incorporate devices (cameras, wearable, AR/VR) to measure and recall an immersive test drive experience to help support car buying decision.
The University of Buckingham
Winning team: Zube
Team members: Oliver Delas, Gabriel Nzubechukwu Nwankwo
The idea: An AI system to analyse car buyers’ information including the demographics, budget, car preferences, etc., which helps dealers to provide the accurate vehicle suggestions to customers and help car buyers to make decision efficiently.
The University of Exeter
Winning team: ExeTerminators
Team members: Barnaby Gill, Ryan Storey, Oskar Oramus, Isaac Cheng
The idea: A web application that provides insights into people's travel habits including suggestions to reduce the environmental impact.
King’s College London
Winning team: Christian Grinling
Team members: Christian Grinling
The idea: A mobile application that allows the consumers to book, track and engage with their car servicing, as well as allowing the garage to monitor their upcoming and current service orders and effectively update the consumers on the car repair/service status.
The University of Warwick
Winning team: The Testroyers
Team members: Sai Kommuru, Lukasz Stanaszek, Laurence Reynolds
The idea: A platform that allows consumers to book and then manage their test drives quickly and easily online with all relevant information about the vehicles that consumers want to buy.
The University of York
Winning team: Just Drive
Team members: James Hensman, Kyriakos Antoniou
The idea: A platform that allows customers to review the local garages and book/track the service online, and garages is able to communicate with customers digitally.
The University of Manitoba
Winning team: EasyCar
Team members: Leon Stetefeld, Jared Rost, Omar Bileha, Joseffus Santos,Tanvir Ahmed
The idea: A search engine to compare and recommend potential new cars for customers by using a matching algorithm.
Munster Technological University
Winning team: REVVV
Team members: Eoghan Boyce, Domonkos Peter, Alana Neenan, Shri Charan Kandhasamy Saravanakumar, Ajeet Kanojia
The idea: A mobile application that shows customers the personalised vehicle service history (visually) with price breakdown and allows customers to prepay before collecting the car at their preferred time.
The University of Surrey
Winning team: SaFeT
Team members: Bhaldeep Bhogal, Yankho Mpokosa
The idea: Incorporates the details of a car deal within an NFT including mileage, make/model, colour, tax status, MOT status and service history, which helps the transparent and trustful used car buying and selling process.
Swansea University
Winning team: Garin Arthur Lloyd
Team members: Garin Arthur Lloyd
The idea: Online global database to connect raw material suppliers, manufacturers and dealerships to help make a more efficient global car supply chain.
Find out more about the competition here.
