Last time Chris Walker came to speak to us, we were told he would be holding a “Dragon’s Den” event for us later in the year. What is Dragon’s Den, you ask? It’s a reality TV show in which hopeful entrepreneurs pitch a business idea to a panel of venture capitalists to obtain partnerships and investments.

Our version of Dragon’s Den, held in late March, was to focus on businesses based in biology, in an attempt to solidify our understanding of how the two disciplines could be brought together. I have written more on this subject in another post.

My team decided to work on a business encouraging the consumption of insect protein. Switching to insects has been a very popular idea in the battle for sustainability, as they are a higher quality source of protein than other animal sources, on top of being cheaper, easier to produce, and more sustainable. The major hurdle is their perception in Western culture. Many startups have attempted to change mentalities, with little success, leaving a challenging, but open, market.

We set about building a business model canvas, a fundraising video and a very short presentation to explain our business idea.

Although the “Dragon’s Den” was fun, it could also have been useful and instructive had we had more time to develop interesting business ideas and had it been better tailored to biology students.