Raphael John-Lall

Abi­gail Liv­er­pool, a 26-year-old mas­ters Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) stu­dent has al­ways had an in­ter­est in or­gan­ic waste re­cy­cling. Liv­er­pool, who is study­ing in­dus­tri­al in­no­va­tion, en­tre­peneur­ship and man­age­ment, en­tered and won the UTT's 4th an­nu­al UTT Busi­ness Plan Com­pe­ti­tion. The prize-giv­ing func­tion was held on Ju­ly 15 at the UTT's O'Meara cam­pus. The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try is to spon­sor the com­pe­ti­tion through to 2011.

Liv­er­pool won the $100,000 first prize for sub­mit­ting a busi­ness plan for the or­gan­ic re­cy­cling busi­ness, Or­gan­i­cy­cle. The com­pe­ti­tion, open to stu­dents, staff and fac­ul­ty, pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to con­cep­tu­alise and de­vel­op in­no­v­a­tive, so­cial­ly ben­e­fi­cial and prac­ti­cal knowl­edge-based busi­ness ideas and plans from their re­search and oth­er aca­d­e­m­ic and co-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties. Liv­er­pool said she has al­ways had an in­ter­est in the area of or­gan­ic waste re­cy­cling.

"Or­gan­ic waste cy­cling in­volves tak­ing kitchen waste–food, veg­eta­bles and fruit–and you take it through a process where it is bro­ken down and then con­vert­ing it in­to fer­tilis­ers." Liv­er­pool did her first de­gree at UWI in agribusi­ness man­age­ment and fi­nance and had per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence in this field. "I pro­duced this and used it for my home gar­den. I then got in­to this deep­er by do­ing more re­search in­to it and, of course, my first de­gree at UWI is re­lat­ed to this area, so I de­vel­oped a pas­sion for this."

Liv­er­pool's par­ents urged her to en­ter the com­pe­ti­tion. "I knew that there was the com­pe­ti­tion, but it was re­al­ly my par­ents who were be­hind me and en­cour­aged me to en­ter." The busi­ness plan was a year in the mak­ing. "There was a busi­ness con­cept which an­swers the ques­tion: What need does it meet? I had to an­swer the ques­tion: Would there be an in­ter­est­ed in­vestor, and the fi­nan­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty of the plan?" The judges were im­pressed by her en­tre­peneur­ship. "They were im­pressed by my flair and en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it as well as the so­cial as­pect that helps the en­vi­ron­ment. Al­so, be­cause of its con­tri­bu­tion to agri­cul­ture be­cause of the fer­tilis­ers."

Ac­cess­ing the prize mon­ey

Liv­er­pool has to fol­low through on the busi­ness plan to ac­cess the prize mon­ey.

Ac­cord­ing to the UTT cri­te­ria, the mon­ey will be dis­bursed as fol­lows:

�2 First tranche of $25,000 is dis­trib­uted when the team suc­cess­ful­ly com­pletes with­in six months com­pa­ny reg­is­tra­tion, iden­ti­fies man­age­ment team and board, has first board meet­ing, and opens a busi­ness bank ac­count.

�2 Sec­ond tranche of $25,000–on sat­is­fac­to­ry com­ple­tion of busi­ness plan with­in eight months of win­ning the award.

�2 Fi­nal $50,000–on com­ple­tion of patent, draft­ing a sales con­tract or de­vel­op­ing a sat­is­fac­to­ry pro­to­type.

She said she is well on her way in meet­ing these cri­te­ria.

"I have al­ready start­ed the reg­is­tra­tion process for the busi­ness. That is in the fi­nal stages. The man­age­ment team has al­ready been es­tab­lished. Of course, the bank ac­count will on­ly be opened once the com­pa­ny reg­is­tra­tion is com­plete." While Liv­er­pool is op­ti­mistic about ex­e­cut­ing the busi­ness plan, she's al­so cau­tious.

"I'm op­ti­mistic, but I al­so know that these things are risky. Of course, there will al­ways be chal­lenges."