CoE students’ Team bags 1st Place at NBO Innovation in SME Award Purvex Student`s Company from the College of Engineering, National University of Science and Technology were the proudest when they bagged the first prize at the prestigious Innovation Award in SME of National Bank of Oman. This annual award is organized by National Bank of Oman for students from higher education institutions in order to promote entrepreneurship and innovation among students. For this year, more than 120 business ideas were submitted for the competition and finally five teams qualified to the final stage.

Purvex has developed an online application called ‘Nsmart Restaurant’ which works as a platform for restaurants and customers. This application supports the Near-Field Communication NFC system and allows customers to order their meals inside the restaurants by connecting NFC devices with the application. Additionally, customers can order their meals before reaching the restaurants by using the Beacon device. As per the market research, Purvex team believes that their services would assist in reducing restaurants’ costs by reducing the number of crew with more meal order accuracy. These services as well has a significant social impact for people with hearing disabilities.

Purvex Company started their entrepreneurial journey in January 2018 after studying the ‘Entrepreneurship, Creativity & Innovation’ course as a part of their Bachelor’s Degree Programme. The team participated at the Company Competition organized by Injaz Oman and was selected among the best three student`s companies at the competition. The team did not stop at this point. The College of Engineering provided Purvex with the necessary support and an office at the Incubation Center at College of Engineering, Caledonian Campus. Additionally, mentoring support was offered by the company supervisor from the college. The company members are highly enthusiastic to take the business further and introduce their services in the market.