Oliver Hunt’s business Medsalv, is a solution to the waste created by ‘single use’ medical devices. New Zealand hospitals create an enormous and costly amount of waste by discarding medical devices that can be used more than once, if reprocessed properly.“Devices are labelled ‘single use’ where the manufacturer has chosen to not do any cleaning validation required for re-use. It does not mean the device has to be thrown away. Given the right cleaning procedures, many can be used multiple times,” he says.The Dream Believe Succeed Foundation Award, which aims to develop young people’s entrepreneurial spirit, consists of $20,000 cash, $60,000 marketing support, $10,000 accounting support, a $5000 legal package as well as mentoring.“There were so many good companies in the competition I didn’t think I would get it. This is going to be massive for Medsalv,” Oliver says.A UC Master of Engineering in Management graduate, Oliver, age 23, developed Medsalv, a company that works with hospitals to reduce their costs and environmental impact, over summer at the UC Centre for Entrepreneurship (UCE) where he was awarded a Scholarship for the UCE EY Summer Startup programme 2017/18.“I found the Programme really good, especially as a sole founder. It gave me a lot of insight, mentoring and ‘sounding boards’ to bounce ideas off and critique what I am doing. The fresh perspectives which I would not have been exposed to otherwise were very helpful,” he says.Five of the seven finalists of the Dream Believe Succeed competition were UC student startups from the UCE’s 2017/18 Summer Startup programme:· Laura Robinson, Purpose Projects· Ron Park, Korure· Oliver Hunt, Medsalv· Nick and Matt Goodson, Catalinq· Matthew Ruffel, Dapper Linux

| A University of Canterbury release    ||  March 02, 2018  ||