20 Feb 07

Judges in Oxford University's own version of the BBC's Dragon's Den have promised Oxford student Thomas Whitfield 'whatever it takes' to ensure his idea becomes a commercial success.

Mr Whitfield, a doctorate researcher in the Department of Biochemistry, and two of his friends from the University of Munich, delivered a two minute 'elevator' pitch to create a website featuring a virtual timeline where users can buy a minute to post their memorable experiences.

The team was one of three Oxford winners at Ideal Idol, a competition staged by the student group Oxford Entrepreneurs, at the Saïd Business School. Two of the judges who made their fortunes with internet businesses of their own, Sháá Wasmund and Dan Wagner, were so impressed with the pitch that they side-stepped the £5,000 prize money pool and offered to back the idea with the weight of their own multi-million pound investment fund at Bright Station Ventures.

The website called designthetime.com will provide a forum for posting images, video or text to mark a particular minute stretching back into history or in the future. Users will pay $1 for the privilege. The website is expected to go online in six weeks.

Mr Whitfield said: 'DesignTheTime.com has the ability to capture the imagination of the whole world. People can literally browse through time, look up news, articles and events associated to a specific point in time and display snapshots of their special moments on the website for eternity, such as the first kiss or the moment you fell in love. Users can leave their individual mark on time and let the whole world or somebody special know about it.'

Sháá Wasmund said: 'Rarely in business does an idea come along that blows you away. DesignTheTime has done just that. With its strong foundation in social networking and user-generated content coupled with the compelling nature of the site itself, we believe it is a major winner.'

Last night's winner at the Varsity Pitch competition at the Saïd Business School with a prize of £5,000 was Touchsight from Cambridge. The team have developed a glove-based mobility aid for the blind and visually impaired. Runners-up included Matoke Matoke, the brainchild of Jessica Mather-Hillon and Brad Chen, from the Saïd Business School's Executive MBA Programme, who have set up a fair trade company to sell napkins made by women displaced in the war in Uganda.