Young people from Hull secondary schools attended an Entrepreneurship Masterclass along with pupils from Hessle High School and Hull Studio School. The Masterclass is designed to challenge young people to think about starting their own business as a career and becoming an entrepreneur. This is achieved by introducing the young people to local role models, as well as inspiring them through presentations, activities and discussion centred on their own life experiences, vision and achievements. The event began with a welcome by BBC presenter Blair Jacobs who outlined what the event was about and talked about the importance young people play in the future of the city of Hull. As an ice breaker the students had to build a free standing tower out of string, spaghetti and tape and then place a marshmallow on the top, the winning team was the one that could produce the tallest tower with their limited resources.
The day’s main guest speaker, international businesswoman and runner up in the BBC Apprentice series, Ruth Badger, who focused on the importance of having the right attitude in business and in life, provided the first inspiration of the day. During her presentation Ruth praised the city’s young people for their enterprising attitudes, in particular those that she had met whilst judging the Badger’s Sett Enterprise Challenge the day before, including the winner Loui Fowler.
As proof of this, the young people then heard from a variety of young local entrepreneurs including Bronwyn Wilson of Crazy Critter World who set up her business aged 14, Hull’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 Amanda Hartley of Amanda’s Blue Orchid,, Phil Benson of Xing Health also told of how discovering ‘smoothies’ had provided the inspiration to develop their business he also said they were now opening a Smoothie Bar in partnership with pupils from Winifred Holtby School that was sponsored by the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank. All of these young entrepreneurs had received funding for their businesses from the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank. Also speaking and helping out on the day was former BBC Jnr Apprentice Emma Walker.
By the afternoon, it was time to put some of the ideas from the morning’s presentations into practice. They were asked to develop a marketing concept for a random object given to them and to pitch this to the Badger’s Sett. Each group had 45 minutes to come up with the name of the product, the retail cost and suitable marketing material. It was then time to present to the Chair Ruth Badger and her fellow judges.
Six teams were identified to present to the Badger’s Sett, with Ruth and her Badgers giving each team a real grilling before retiring to make their deliberations. Top of the pile came Eco Buddy from Malet Lambert School who won £400 donated by Arco. Second place and £200 courtesy of Hull College Group went to Hydro of Hessle High, whilst behind them came Solar Comb from Malet Lambert who won £130 donated by Malet Lambert School, Fourth and fifth spots went to Hydro Bath Experience from Sirius Academy and Waterwonder from Winifred Holtby School and Solar Dog from Malet Lambert taking sixth place. These three prizes of £80 worth of vouchers were donated by some of the city’s young entrepreneurs Force-7, Build life and Xing Smoothies.
Best Video £800 – sponsored by CityWorks went to E Accessorise from Newland School for Girls
Evaluation Draw £20 – sponsored by CityWorks went to Declyn from Trinity House School
At the end of the event, all teachers, students and business volunteers were asked to complete an evaluation, the results of which clearly showed that the event had been a success. Teachers in particular felt that the event had significantly developed students’ enterprise capabilities as set out in Hull’s Big 13 Enterprise Skills.
Comments
“Another excellent day as part of GEW 2012 well planned, informative and enjoyable. I saw the pupils from our school interact with confidence with some of Hull’s well-known young entrepreneurs as well as ‘The Badger’ who was great again!
Kerry-Ann Burrell
Andrew Marvell College
“Once again an excellent event with Ruth Badger. Students learnt more about running a business and have gained some more teamwork experience. “The speeches were all very interesting especially Ruth’s and the young entrepreneurs, as were the challenges which the students appeared to thoroughly enjoy, she even made a joke about the badger model we as a school had presented to her.”
Stephen Logan
Business Champion, Malet Lambert School
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