Meet UAL's Future 50 Founders and Freelancers

On 14 November, graduate businesses and industry gathered at Peckham Levels to celebrate the announcement of UAL’s Future 50 Founders and Freelancers. Taking place during Global Entrepreneurship Week, the event showcased and highlighted the amazing startups and freelancers coming from UAL’s colleges with 4 awards given on the night.

The awards were presented by London College of Communications graduate Jay McGregor, a TV and Radio presenter who since her time at UAL has worked with Channel 4, E4, BBC, KISS FM, Apple Music, Converse, Nike and more.

The awards started with an introduction from UAL’s Chief Social Purpose Officer Polly McKenzie. Discussing the dent made in the world by founders and freelancers who strive for change, Polly congratulated all the 50 nominated businesses before awards were presented by representatives from each college.

London College of Fashion

Our winner from London College of Fashion is Hanan Tantush for Intotum. Intotum seeks to create functional adaptive clothing, specifically for wheelchair users, reflecting high street fashions, with hidden functionalities built in. Promoting empowerment through ease of dressing, this collection enables independence and individuality for a marginalised community. The collection is realised through an explorative process, exchanging knowledge between designer and customer. Hanan has already seen great success with Intotum, winning a Mayor’s Entrepreneur Award and AXA’s startup angel competition.

London College of Communication

Our winner from London College of Communication is Frieda Bischoff and Vassi Deij for Renée Materials. The vision at Renée Materials is a world without wasted materials! Renée is a marketplace where companies offer their offcuts, surplus stock, and leftover waste to art & design students, creative practitioners, and makers who need materials for their projects. It's essentially like 'Too-Good-To-Go' but for materials. They believe that implementing and fostering circular creative practices, while radically changing the way we design will help us getting closer and closer to building a world without any wasted resources. Renee Materials has been part of the LCC Accelerate programme and have been shortlisted for the Santander X Global Award ´24 - Santander’s international university entrepreneurship competition.

Central Saint Martins

Our winner from Central Saint Martins is Jesse Adler for Alchemical Mycology. Colour is a vital feature of life and as such, humans have been on a quest to harness the boldest and brightest colours for thousands of years. The advent of synthetic colourants triggered a new wave of colourful possibilities, with hues and performance characteristics well-beyond that of colourants from plants, animals, and minerals. However, synthetic colourants are made from fossil fuels (a non-renewable resource) and some have been found to have harmful effects on both humans (as carcinogens) and the planet (as pollutants). Drawing on a background in chemistry and biomolecular science, Jesse has become a mycological alchemist, extracting pigments from fungi and exploring how they can function as abundant renewable sources of colour with the potential to reduce or replace our dependence on non-renewable colourants. Jesse has also been nominated for the MullenLowe NOVA Awards.

Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon College of Art

Our winners from Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon are Wanpeng Xu (Loki), Nanthini Sampathkumar, Vikram Mohan, Disha Kulkarni, Mia Harris, Jui Apte for Camberwell Repair Café. The Camberwell Repair Café is a student-led organisation whose mission is to promote repair culture across London and to build a climate-resilient community of citizens. They repair textiles, clothing, basic household accessories, wooden accessories and plan to expand the range of repairs in the future. At Camberwell Repair Café, they want to grow their network by engaging with students as well as the local community.

You can explore all the businesses nominated for the Future 50 through the Graduate Showcase collection.