Six students who developed a product to pinpoint faults in underground electricity cables have scooped a £10,000 sterling (E;16.010) prize for their invention and been named as Northern Ireland's New Entrepreneurs for 2001. The team from Queen's University were overall winners in the Investment Belfast £10,000 Award for New Entrepreneurs, an annual competition which seeks to identify Northern Ireland's top university entrepreneurs. The Horizons Limited team, which comprises Mr Peter Hung, Mr Rory Mullan, Ms Helen Patton, Mr Jonathan Rodgers, Ms Ciara Sands and Mr Ciaran Toal, are electrical and engineering students.

Horizons Limited saw a need for an accurate cable fault locator due to the service standard requirements imposed by regulatory bodies on electricity distribution companies such as Northern Ireland Electricity. They developed the ThunderStick product, which pinpoints the location of electricity cable faults.

The award, sponsored by Crescent Capital and PricewaterhouseCoopers, is intended to encourage students and researchers to move their best ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Investment Belfast, the body that promotes investment opportunities in the city, organises the award in association with Queen's and the University of Ulster. Mr Brendan Mullan, chief executive of Investment Belfast, said: "Events such as the Investment Belfast £10K Award for New Entrepreneurs show that we can translate that research into commercially viable projects," he added. A total of 31 business plans were submitted this year with 10 runners-up commended.