The winners of the 2009 Make Your Mark Enterprising Young Brits Awards were announced today (Tuesday 24 March 2009) at a very swanky ceremony at the Institute of Directors (IoD), London.
They were each presented with a trophy and £1,000 prize money by Chancellor Alistair Darling, who made time to chat to finalists and hear their positive stories.
Social Enterprise West Midlands is running a trade fair for those looking to start or collaborate on social enterprise.
The social enterprise revolution starts on Tues 10th Feb at Centenary Square, Birmingham from 11:00 and what’s more is that it’s FREE: http://sewm.eventbrite.com
SEWM website: http://www.socialenterprisewm.org.uk
My last day of Enterprise Week (booo) was spent at Wolverhampon Molineux Stadium where I facilitated a group of students for the Wolverhampton EBP Business Challenge. The aim was to come up with a business idea that could potentially be franchised in the future. Out of the 9 schools that attended the group that won was, of course… the one facilitated by a Make Your Marker!
Last Thursday saw the Make Your Mark “roving” laptop enter Bescot Stadium in Walsall… Myself and Cheryl (and our trolley) took up our place at the Business Start Up and Growth Show where we attempted to get visitors to log onto our Unleashing Ideas website and post their business problems.
Many contacts were made throughout the day and we managed to get a few photos with one of our West Mids ambassadors Jo Cameron (some of you might recognise her from Series 1 of The Apprentice!).
Laura and I were press ganged into acting as judges for a special fashion challenge this week by Progressive Educational Tools (PET) and we had a great time - as did the participants. Now you may think that Coventry isn’t a particuarly fashion forward place - eg Bex and her I love Coventry t-shirts, thanks Bex. But you’d be wrong.
The two teams had mixed pupils from Sherbourne Fields and Blue Coats schools to take part in the challenge to produce and original fashion brand, including designs, logo and radio ad.
The car was at the school as part of a launch by Jaguar, along with the North Warwickshire Education Business Partnership and representatives from eight schools.
Year 7’s at Ash Green School in Coventry got the chance to put their enterprise skills into practice when they were visited by a team from Warwickshire Education Business Partnership and members of the local business community.
Over 200 students at Hereward College in Coventry got their teeth into bananas - and this year’s Make Your Mark Challenge. The students all attend the college which takes in 16-19 year olds from both the surrounding city area and countrywide. All Hereward students have some kind of physical disability, so to have the paralympic values as part of the challenge was particularly relevant and poignant.
This morning I went along with PET (Progressive Educational Tools) to the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry to support 20 disadvantaged students in the MYM Challenge! Although they had all been excluded from their schools for one reason or another and all come from disadvantaged backgrounds we could definately see some potential for future entrepreneurs!
It just goes to show that even the ones that “dont have potential” or “are lost causes” actually have some of the best ideas and deserve a chance to prove it.
The winning idea was a social networking site for 2012 Olympic participants and the lucky team recieved a prize at the end for their fabulous efforts.
OPPORTUNITY PRICELESS, FUN GUARANTEED
Teamworks Karting in partnership with Make Your Mark is holding a unique event where 30 ‘up and coming’ women entrepreneurs will spend a day as team members and mentees to one of five successful business women.
Mentors include:
GITA PATEL, FOUNDER STARGATE CAPITAL
SANDRA HARRISON, MD, REVIVAL STUDIOS,
DANIELA VARLEY, FOUNDING DIRECTOR, RECRE8NOW
If you are aged between 16-30,aspiring to succeed in business and fancy spending a fun day with someone that can offer you great ideas to help you on your way into business then email: [email protected] or call Tel: 0870 900 3020
Speednetwork on a barge? Has this ever been seen before?!!
Well yesterday, the West Midlands team made it happen! Joined by a fantastic range of our ambassadors, local entrepreneurs, University SIFE teams and enterprise enthusiasts, we cruised through central Birmingham on our very own canal barge. After a photocall with Birmingham Post (yay for Caroline!) we stepped aboard for our hour of speednetworking. Four minutes was all that was given to get the most of your partner before the whistle was blown and it was time to move on.
We received excellent feedbackfrom all those who attended; great contacts were made, business ideas were put in motion and enterprise week events surfaced which is great for us!
Osaba Enriched Life Services and ACCOL unleashing the enterprising talent of Coventry’s local communities with the launch of the, ‘Change My World’ entrepreneurs club. The launch is just one of 5 events being held over Enterprise Week and Global Entrepreneurship Week which are specifically aimed at stimulating interest in business and social enterprise among people from hard to reach communities in the City. These events will engage up to 500 people from the minority ethnic community including women, men and young people from traditional and new Diasporas.
‘Be Seen’ and win £100
All businesses, small and large, are interested in generating local media coverage to promote their products, services and activities.
So we have launched a competition for all our Make Your Mark clubs to show us how they get their club noticed.
Clubs have until 28 November to put there plans into action and to show us how their club activity has been seen by a wider audience, either at their school or college, in their local community or even internationally.
The One Water project has just become slightly more superb… with all this talk of water, we at the West Mids office thought we’d try and create some awareness around climate change and how this is affected by all our water-guzzling. Climate Change Solutions has come on board as partners for the One Water project to share their knowledge about how we can keep water consumption down, which in turn could help save our planet! Who would have thought there was such a shortage of water in the world when all us poor Brits get is rain…?
Thursday 2nd October saw Make Your Mark cause a stir in the West Midlands! Our “Unleashing Enterprise Week in the West Midlands” event went down a storm with potential Enterprise Week event organisers. The turn out exceeded our expectations and all the feedback we received showed that the evening was inspiring, engaging and informative, which means all our hard work paid off!
We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that took the time to attend our first event as a West Midlands campaign, we are no longer confined to Coventry realms, hurrah! We would also like to thank our brilliant guest speakers, Debra Blissen (AWM), Fleur Sexton (PET) and Leeroy Bailey (Kombat Breakers) for inspiring us all to get involved in Enterprise Week 2008!
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