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UWA Business School
The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well among students at UWA. When Commerce and Engineering student William Crock saw an opportunity to improve the wireless network on campus, he created a new business venture.

Students could soon be experiencing even greater convenience, thanks to an innovative business plan created by William and his two fellow students from a Marketing unit in Entrepreneurship run by Dr. Donald Ee at the UWA Business School.

WIFLI is free internet Wherever I Feel Like It. The aim, says William, ‘is to provide a free service to anyone who wants to use it without any sign up hassles, filtered access, or download limits.' He explains, ‘We can provide this using a new cheaper technology, and the advertising value of a student audience.'

The innovation has just won William's team second place at this year's Queen's Entrepreneurs' Competition.

‘We were super-stoked to place second after having no expectations. We won six grand to share between us and proceeded to have a great time in Kingston [in Canada],' beams William.

Run by students at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, the competition attracts high profile judges. Past judges have included Connie Clerici, founder of Closing the Gap Healthcare Group, and Grant Rasmussen, the president and CEO of UBS Bank (Canada).

In the final round of the competition, William and fellow team member Jennifer Turliuk presented their business plan to 100 business people and entrepreneurs.

William admits, ‘It was quite nerve-racking walking out in front of the crowd to set up before our speech.' The task was made all the harder with third team member Sai Yeng still back in Hong Kong and William spending his holidays working 60 hour weeks at a BHP refinery back in Perth.

But after William spent 20 hours refining the presentation while on the flight to Toronto, the team's hard work paid off. They impressed the judges and made invaluable business contacts, some of whom have pledged investment for WIFLI in the future.

‘I now have a network of business contacts and other young entrepreneurs in Canada, and some very high powered business people to contact in the event that we require investment,' says William. ‘We also received heaps of business advice which we documented and have used to further our idea.'

The recognition was well-deserved. WIFLI involved a lot of work, says William, with the team finding it especially difficult to get accurate costings and quantify the advertising value of a captive student audience.

WIFLI's potential will now be realised even further. Not only is the team part of the advisory board representing student interests to Information Technology Services at UWA, but they are also developing a pilot project with Murdoch University. Meetings have also been arranged with Curtin University and ECU.

With such success, it's only the beginning for William Crock and WIFLI.