Inside the University of Nottingham’s First Entrepreneurial Placement Year

The University of Nottingham has never offered a placement quite like this before. While most students spend their year interning for established companies, Industrial Economics student Daniel de Faria joined the first cohort to test a radical alternative: the Witty Entrepreneurial Placement, a new scheme supporting students who take a year out to build their own businesses from scratch. The programme, funded by alumnus and former university chancellor Sir Andrew and Lady Caroline Witty, gives budding founders the time, space and financial backing to turn ideas into impact.

Twelve months later, De Faria has transformed a nascent idea into an award-winning social enterprise addressing grassroots sports inequality - and gained insights that stretch from the playing fields of the UK to the boardrooms of China.

"I'd sum it up as a year of massive growth," reflects Daniel. "It was the first time I had full responsibility for turning an idea into something real, and that meant facing challenges I couldn't have prepared for."

Rising Athletes, De Faria's social enterprise, tackles a problem he witnessed first-hand growing up in Brazil and playing football in the UK: unless you're in an elite academy, accessing quality coaching, injury support, and nutrition advice is nearly impossible.

"I saw so many talented players fall behind, not because they lacked effort, but because they lacked guidance," explains De Faria, drawing on his own experiences. Rising Athletes fills that gap through digital tools and local sessions designed to help young players train smarter and stay healthy, while supporting their families too.

Building it required a bold departure from the traditional placement year. Through the Witty Entrepreneurial Placement, De Faria received financial support from the university, workspace in The Ingenuity Lab, and mentorship from Business School experts, to spend twelve months as his own boss, building Rising Athletes from the ground up.

“Compared to a more traditional placement, this experience has been a lot less structured and a lot more personal,” he says. “There’s no one telling you what to do or checking in every morning. You set your own goals, and if you fall short, there’s no fallback, it’s on you. But that’s also been the most valuable part. It’s forced me to develop discipline, make decisions under pressure, and stay focused even when there’s no obvious path forward. I’ve had to learn by doing, and I don’t think I’d have grown this much in any other environment.”

His Industrial Economics degree provided a base for this unstructured environment. "The course trains you to break things down, question assumptions, and think in terms of systems," he explains. “It’s helped me approach problems more analytically, whether I’m thinking about pricing, competition, user behaviour, or how to design something that people actually want.”

The approach has already earned recognition. De Faria won the Social Mobility prize at the university's Ingenuity Impact competition, which supports young social entrepreneurs to develop impactful businesses. “What stood out to me about Ingenuity was how focused it was on real-world impact. It wasn’t about building the flashiest idea. It was about asking, ‘Who is this for, and how will it actually help them?’ That mindset changed how I approached Rising Athletes. It pushed me to think more deeply about the kind of change we’re trying to make.”

But it was a trip to the University’s Ningbo campus in China, and a chance to take part in the Doing Business in China summer school, that provided some of the year’s most unexpected lessons.

“We visited a range of companies and heard directly from founders and business leaders about how they operate and grow in the Chinese market,” Daniel says. “One thing that really stood out was how much trust and relationship-building shapes everything. We often heard the word guanxi - the idea that business relationships are built on long-term personal connections, not just contracts or credentials. That changes how decisions are made, how deals come together, and who gets in the room.”

It was, he says, a reminder that entrepreneurship is as cultural as it is commercial. “It made me think more carefully about how trust is built in different contexts, and how much of business is about people, not just products.”

Another striking contrast was pace. “There’s a boldness to the way people operate in China,” he says. “They’re comfortable testing things early, adjusting quickly, and learning in public. One founder told us, ‘If I only worked when things were certain, I’d never get anything done.’ That line really stayed with me. It put words to something I hadn’t fully noticed in myself, how often I wait longer than I need to before taking action.”

The experience, he says, has changed how he thinks about business on a global scale. “Scaling isn’t just about translating what already works in one market and pushing it somewhere else. The assumptions people make, the way they build trust, how they interact with brands - all of that can shift completely from place to place,” he says. “It also made me realise how important it is to spend time listening before acting. There’s often a rush to enter new markets quickly, but without understanding how people actually think and behave, you’re just guessing.”

Having returned to his studies in September, Daniel views the structured academic environment differently. "Running a business often felt like trying to move forward without a map," he says. "Coming back to university now feels like being given both a map and a compass."

Witty Scholarships Manager Janet Wallace believes opportunities like this are vital for budding entrepreneurs: "We are grateful for the generosity that fuels these opportunities for Nottingham students," she says. "Through our entrepreneurship programmes, they gain not only skills and confidence, but also the chance to create meaningful change, creating impact in their own lives and in the communities they engage with, creating a ripple effect that is felt far beyond campus."

As Rising Athletes continues to grow, De Faria's placement year stands as proof that sometimes the best way to learn about business can come not from joining someone else's organisation, but from building your own.