Business and Law students win cash for their enterprises

Three students from the Faculty of Business and Law (FBL) have received a share of the £30,000 prize pot awarded through the Open University’s Open Business Creators Fund.

The Open Business Creators Fund, co-funded by Santander Universities and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), provides crucial financial support to small and aspiring businesses owned by OU students and alumni.

This year’s FBL winners include MBA student Matt Barber with his business ‘Harbour Games Ltd’, Criminology and Law student Mark Maddison with ‘Vision for Access CIC’, and MBA alumnus James Boyce with ‘Access-air-bility’. 

Airline pilot James Boyce (pictured), who founded the aviation industry’s first passenger-powered accessibility-intelligence platform Access-air-bility, said:

Access-air-bility was recently named Accessible Air Travel Innovator of the Year at the 2025 Greater London Enterprise Awards, which has given us further momentum. We’re using the OU grant to upgrade the systems behind our data platform, enabling us to scale up survey collection, streamline analysis, and bring in even more insights from people with disabilities around the world.

“By the end of this year, our goal is to hold the world’s largest dataset on accessible air travel. The support from the Fund has helped turn that vision into something operational, not just aspirational – we’re well on our way to achieving that now!”

An impressive 350 budding entrepreneurs signed up this year, with 130 submitting their entry to be considered for a grant. After presenting their business models to a panel of judges online, the 20 outstanding proposals were chosen for grants (£1,500 each). They will also be encouraged to apply for the Santander X UK Awards and signposted to other support ecosystems.

The Fund has supported 1,600 businesses with business modelling software and learning resources since it launched in 2023, awarding £140,000 to 70 of them.