Make Your Mark Blog

We were asked by the British Council to help out in selecting the top 100 young people to get the experience of a lifetime. They get to spend 6 weeks this summer is China, India or Brazil getting to know the culture, people, businesses and schools.

As the experts in enterprise we assessing the candidates on their enterprise capability. So I devised a challenge for the candidates to work in teams to come up with an idea to raise the profile of an NGO in one of the host countries. The case studies were all real and gave the candidates a really good basis of info to come up with some amazingly innovative ideas.

Original ideas can come from all kinds of places. Whether you want to address environmental issues, start a social enterprise or make your community a better place, ideas have the power to change the way we all live.
Creative Partnerships recognise that young people often have the best ideas of all: the younger we are, the more likely we are to use imagination and creativity to understand the world. Creative Partnerships have a project to encourage more young people to have brilliant ideas: Ideas that can change the world is harnessing the creativity of young people to develop ideas to change the world for the world better.

The Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) – the umbrella body for the social enterprise movement – has launched an animation explaining social enterprise. If you have something to say about it, drop a comment below.

A colleague in USA just stumbled across this on YouTube… Bilimoria with advice on being an entrepreneur… irreverent title, but fairly serious/inspirational content.

If you would like to go to a Reception at Buckingham Palace, can you think of someone you could nominate for The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion 2009?

The nominators of the successful candidates also get a Royal invitation so it is will worth making a nomination.

Each year there are up to 10 Awards plus a Lifetime Achievement Award, if there is a suitable candidate.

Previous recipients include Jane Delfino, Innovations Director at the United Learning Trust within the Manchester Academy who is a Board Member of Enterprise Insight.

startups.co.uk have published their list of the top 100 UK start-ups. It is great to see some familiar faces in there, and lots of young entrepreneurs in the mix. My personal faves have to be Onya (their shopping bag is always on me) and moo.com. Check em out and please let us know your favourite.

http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842910082155685/startups-100.html

Check out dieselwall.com - they are looking for designs to go on huge buildings. The deadline for the huge Manchester wall (28 x 18m) is 18 May so there is plenty of time to think of some designs. The wall is huge and so is the opportunity. We might do one from Make Your Mark, maybe something around failure but it would be good to get lots of others submitted too. Any budding designers pls give us a shout!

great article on web mission 08 and what it takes to be a uk tech entrepreneur.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/techdigest/20080423/ttc-web-mission-08-how-to-be-a-uk-tech-e-e870a33.html

but if you want a quick summary…

1. You need to have a monster ego.

2. You need to have an Eureka moment.

3. You need to work that idea.

4. You need to rope in your techie mate.

6. You need to get the business plan together.

8. You will probably need to seek round one funding.

9. You need to go for scale or go for the cash.

NESTA has unveiled the 100 groups who’ve made it through to the next stage of the Big Green Challenge, the £1 million prize fund that challenges people from across the UK to work together to demonstrate new ways to reduce CO2 emissions within their communities. You can find details of all 100 groups here: www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk/big-green-challengers/

The big green ideas on the shortlist include a ‘Carbon Watchers’ club to monitor CO2 emissions in Yorkshire; a Sussex prison’s bio-fuels production scheme; the creation of a volunteer workforce in the West Midlands to help local people take energy-efficient measures in their homes; and a virtual farmer’s market in Bristol.

The BBC is currently searching for Britain’s best entrepreneurs for the next series of Dragons’ Den and will be auditioning throughout the coming months. They want to hear from anyone who is genuinely seeking investment for their business idea or invention and thinks they’ve got what it takes to enter the Dragons’ Den.

If you would like an application form send an e-mail to [email protected], telephone 0871 200 3003 (Calls cost 10p per minute from a BT Landline, other operators and mobiles may be higher) or visit www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden

What’s more, as it is St George’s Day today what better day is there to take on a Dragon?!

Make Your Mark has teamed up with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, NESTA and a number of other organisations to bring you The UK Catalyst Awards: Community Awards for Social Change.

These new awards are looking for people who help their community by using social technology in new and exciting ways.

Anyone in the UK can enter and winners will get the chance to promote their idea and see it adopted by others, be invited to pitch their idea to judges, compare notes with fellow finalists, and meet other interesting people, like the folk from Unltd - the charity that helps social entrepreneurs. They will also be invited to an award ceremony where their work could be recognised as the best in the country.

last week, the global entrepreneurship week planning team in london met up with several host organizations from western europe. we all met in paris and were hosted by les journees de l’entrepreneur (http://www.journee-entrepreneur.com/) and ernst & young, who very graciously provided us a brilliant meeting space on the 38th and 39th floor of their building in la defense.

there were 9 countries represented at the table, including france, spain, germany, denmark, holland, greece, norway, italy - and of course us from the uk! campaign experts from make your mark led 5 workshop sessions over the course of the day and a half, covering topics such as possible activities and evaluation through to PR and sponsorship. (many thanks to hannah, cathy, scott, anjoum and mike paice for that!)

Having left the BBC Your Game event last Wednesday I continued onto the Spark Women’s Business Workout (also in Bristol) which was a really inspiring event for women who either want to set up a business or grow an existing one. Amongst others I met the founder of Sew Bespoke who makes custom wedding dresses and was keen to grow her business further. We also heard from Alex Lovell, a local BBC presenter who inspired us with her story of how she got to make her mark in TV presenting and news reading. There was a real sense of support in the room and it felt like people were really benefitting from talking to others about the issues they were facing. Being an entrepreneur can be isolating so events like this are a great way to link up lots of individuals.

I’m in sunny Bristol today for two events. I’ve just returned from the BBC Your Game festival at the City Academy. Lots of people there are taking part as we speak in a football tournament, BBC Blast dance workshops etc and hearing from some great organisations like UnLtd Sport Relief, Princes Trust, the local police force, sexual health organisations etc. They are engaging groups of people through football and dance and encouraging them to make the most of the numerous opportunities out there. Hopefully a few will also be keen to log onto makeyourmarkinmusic.org.uk…

The Ideas Igloo road show was created in order to search for hidden entrepreneurs in Colleges and Universities across the UK.