Middlesex University student wins entrepreneurship competition

Student Alina Shiraz takes £2,000 top prize at annual contest for start-ups and business ideas with online safety simulation project, reports Leïla Davaud

Four women on a stage with one holding a certificate — Alina celebrates her win – (Credit – Middlesex University)

“Filmmaking has always mattered to me but the question of its wider purpose is a persistent one,” says Alina Shiraz, first-year film student at Middlesex University in Hendon. She adds: “SafeStory is my answer.” She recently won the ‘What’s Your Big Idea: Pathway To Success’ final, taking a £2,000 prize.

The competition aims to promote and develop enterprise and entrepreneurship within Barnet by offering students, residents and employees within the local community the opportunity to showcase their ideas, attend business development workshops and win funding to help grow their business.

Held in July at Middlesex University and delivered in collaboration with Global Talent Solution Hub, the event was sponsored by Barnet Council and Brent Cross Shopping Centre.

It was made up of eight panel judges, including tech CEO and entrepreneur Stephen Crampton, and Middlesex University alumnus and competition sponsor Josef Sucharevitz, among other business leaders and innovators who chose the winner and four runners-up.

Alina says: “Winning first place was genuinely unexpected. Twenty-nine of us reached the semi-final and five of us progressed to the final. What I valued most was not the prize itself but the confidence that my concept was viable.”

Her motivation behind SafeStory has always been the children themselves. She explains: “Safeguarding is one of the most important things a school teaches, and I could see it wasn’t reaching them. So what I wanted, more than anything, was to build something that genuinely helps children learn to keep themselves safe.”

Entering the competition was how Alina tested whether that was possible. “What’s Your Big Idea runs over ten weeks, so it isn’t a single pitch. You are challenged repeatedly, and that was precisely what I needed.

“I also wanted to establish whether I was capable of building a business around the idea, rather than simply having one. Which came from examining how safeguarding is currently delivered in schools.”

Alina adds: “The dominant methods remain assemblies, PowerPoints and printed leaflets delivered once and largely forgotten within hours. The issue is not that children are uninformed; they are told. The difficulty is that being told something once, in a format that does not engage them, offers little protection when a real situation arises. Safety needs to be practised.”

In her opinion, film is the medium that makes that possible. “A narrative holds a child’s attention in a way written materials cannot, and when a child makes the decision themselves, they move from observing a safety lesson to rehearsing one.”

SafeStory brings together and improves on three elements that schools currently do separately: engaging, interactive lessons that children will actually remember; a confidential route for a child to reach for help if they need it; and the Ofsted-ready evidence schools need to show that safeguarding is working.

“If a story I have made means a child recognises a situation earlier, or finds the confidence to speak to someone, that is more valuable than anything else I could produce.”

When asked why SafeStory won the competition, Alina answers: “I believe it won because it is specific and the problem is real. Everyone in that room recognised it. The judges understood immediately why it matters, and they could see that SafeStory would make a genuine difference to children.”

Following the competition, Alina immediately took the next steps to make her project a reality: “SafeStory is now incorporated as SafeStory Ltd. I am currently developing the prototype through the Venture School sprint I won — a start-up incubator based in London — and allocating the ‘What’s Your Big Idea?’ prize funding to script validation by a certified child psychologist. Writing safeguarding content for young children requires professional oversight of every scenario.”

While the jury was inspired by Alina’s idea, she was impressed by runner-up Sai Ali’s ‘Mind Haven’ project. The Middlesex data science masters graduate won the second prize of £1,500 with his platform that helps neurodivergent people understand whether a venue will feel too crowded, noisy, or overwhelming before they visit.

“It really stood out to me. It’s a very different project to mine, but I thought it was a genuinely brilliant idea.”

Together with psychology student Boudica Atheldene, who works as a peer supporter at Autistic Parents UK, Sai developed a ComfortScore system built on publicly available environmental data covering more than 197,000 locations across Greater London, validated across over 1,200 venues. MindHaven also includes NeuroPassport, a private profile that helps users find activities and places that best match their individual sensory preferences.

Commenting on the initiative’s success and benefit to students’ future career prospects, head of careers and futures at Middlesex University Jack Tims said: “Every year the What’s Your Big Idea? programme produces a range of diverse, innovative and inspiring ideas, and this year was no different, clearly highlighting the entrepreneurial talent across our student, alumni and local resident community.”

The event received £2,000 in funding from Barnet Council and £2,500 from Brent Cross Shopping Centre, which also donated space for the finalists to promote their businesses on a free stand. Middlesex alumnus Josef Sucharevitz also donated £1,000 towards the participants’ prizes.

Barnet Council’s small business champion, councillor Philip Cohen, who spoke at the event, said: “Barnet Council is very pleased to be supporting this competition, as part of our commitment to promoting enterprise and education across the borough.

“Competitions like this are so important, giving students and local residents the opportunity to present their business ideas, take the initiative and build confidence in themselves.”

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