Pembroke College Cambridge

Parmee Prize 2022

 

The Parmee Prize is an annual entrepreneurship competition for Pembroke College undergraduate and postgraduate students organised by the Corporate Partnership Programme. William Pitt Fellow Dr Richard Parmee (1970), from our Corporate Partner company Cheyney, devised the competition to support aspiring entrepreneurs, and Dr Parmee is a co-sponsor of the prize along with the DG Marshall Trust.

The Parmee Prize welcomes applications from all stages of the entrepreneurship journey, and applicants will receive training and mentoring from Richard to help them develop their business idea. Budding entrepreneurs are asked to fill in an application form and short-listed candidates are then asked to pitch their business to a panel of judges. The winning applicant gets £2000 to develop their business and receives mentoring support from Richard.

 

The Judges for the 2022 competition are:

  • Dr Samantha Deacon (2004) - Goodwin Procter
  • Dr Mark Mann (1999) - Oxford University Innovation
  • Mr Piers Morgan (1985) - COMPASS Pathways Plc
  • Mr Simon Harris (1969) - Lambda Energy Ltd
  • Mr Robert Marshall (1989) - Marshall Group

 

Parmee Prize 2022 FAQs

If your question is not answered below, please email corporate@pem.cam.ac.uk. Testimonials from past applicants can be accessed here.

The application process:

  • Applications closed on Monday 24th January 2022. Applications were reviewed by the judges and short-listed candidates notified in February.
  • All applicants (regardless of short-listing) were invited to participate in a ‘How to pitch your idea’ training session with Dr Richard Parmee on 8 February.
  • Shortlisted applicants will be invited to present their idea to the judges on Wednesday 9th March 2022.
  • Presentations should be 15-20 minutes long and will be followed by 5-10 minutes of questions. You can use slides.
  • The judges will select the winner after all the presentations.
  • The winner will receive £2,000 along with mentorship from Dr Richard Parmee to continue to develop their business idea. Unsuccessful finalists will also be offered advice and mentoring, and many have noted the mentorship was more valuable than the cash prize when developing their business idea.

Who is eligible to apply?

The lead applicant must be a Pembroke College undergraduate or postgraduate student. However, a team of applicants is welcome, and participants can be from any college.

What stage of development does the business need to be at? Is it enough to have 'just' an idea or should the business be already up and running?

You are welcome to apply at any stage. The application is the equivalent to an elevator pitch, so the business can be at very early development stage. In the application we would primarily like to know how you intend to use the prize money and this is a useful thing to start thinking about when creating your pitch. For the presentation, successful applicants will need to go into more depth, having done adequate market research into their chosen fields and developed financial projections.

What are the judges looking for in the application? 

We have had all sorts of applications in the past – you can see examples here including interviews with past winners on their experience of the competition. The judges look at a variety of criteria but ultimately select the business idea with the most potential to be successful.