Manchester entrepreneur’s ‘grand idea’ for water consumption
A YOUNG entrepreneur from Manchester University has been awarded £1,000 by Shell LiveWIRE’s Grand Ideas programme to help him develop his business called GiveMeTap.
Edwin Broni-Mensah, 24, has founded a business that enables users of a specially-branded GiveMeTap bottle to get free tap water refills from a network of cafés and restaurant owners in the Manchester area.
His idea was pitched at the NACUE ‘Business Not as Usual’ conference in a special Shell LiveWIRE elevator pitch competition that took place at University College London last month.
Mr Broni-Mensah was subsequently shortlisted and had to present his business before a panel of judges and an audience.
He said: “I’m overjoyed about getting this opportunity. It will have such a huge impact on making water easily accessible to anyone, anywhere, any time.”
Mr Broni-Mensah has calculated that a regular bottled water drinker can see around £300 a year trickle away on their consumption.
GiveMeTap users not only save financially, they also reduce their environmental impact by reducing wastage of discarded plastic bottles.
Out of the 13bn plastic bottles consumed equivalent to 1.5m tonnes of plastic, only 10% are recycled with the rest going to landfills.
Mr Broni-Mensah has pledged 70% of all his profits to funding independent water projects in regions around the world where it’s needed most.
The £1,000 award follows successful funding and support from UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, which has enabled Mr Broni-Mensah to start up and develop GiveMeTap.
