Dragons Den

Posted on Monday, November 10, 2008 by Josh
Tags: Development

As part of Social Enterprise Week the Business Hub Initiative Group (BHIG) ran a Dragon’s Den style competition for young people in Birmingham and Solihull. The competition, which was funded by Social Enterprise West Midlands, challenged young people to design a business idea and then talk to Social Enterprise business representatives about their proposals. Aimed at young people under the age of 25, entrants stood a chance of walking away with part of £1,000.

With over 50 entrants from across Birmingham and Solihull the competition finalists were whittled down to 15 who then had to face a panel of four judges. The youngest contestants on the day came from Clifton Junior School who were the first to face the judges with an array of creative business ideas.

Amongst the winning entries were Just Ask who came from the Birmingham Association of Youth Clubs and who won the over 17 category. Their idea, which was an extension of an existing project they had already voluntarily been involved in, was to market and utilise their experiences as consultants to organisations Birmingham wide on the issues surrounding equal opportunities.

Having already produced a ‘Best Practice’ pack for organisations the new role for Just Ask’s members would be to become consultants. This would entail advising businesses on how to improve access issues for disabled people at the physical level as well as from a social perspective. As a result of the pitch put forward by the Just Ask members, BHIG are now looking at ways of providing work experience opportunities amongst members of the social enterprise sector.

In the under 11s category a team called Fire Cars came first with a creative way with which to capitalise on fuel sales for a rocket powered remote controlled car. For the over 11s an individual entry from Parkview School entitled Unity Cards achieved first place.

Peter Cole from St. Paul’s Community Development Trust who was one of the four judges on the day said of the competition, “Some of the ideas were simply fantastic. Everyone who stood in front of us was so brave. I am convinced that some of these young people will go on to become budding tycoons”.

With a focus on using enterprising ideas for environmental or social change this year’s Social Enterprise Week was the biggest annual celebration of all things enterprising across the UK. Last year over 448,000 people took part in 3,184 Enterprise Week events nationwide – 44% more than the previous year – and 2007 was even bigger with over 5000 events UK wide.

Enterprise Week, which is run by the national Make Your Mark campaign, aims to kick-start a more enterprising culture amongst young people in the UK.

The Make Your Mark campaign is the national campaign to create an enterprise culture in the UK. It aims to inspire young people in their teens and twenties to have ideas and make them happen. The not-for-profit campaign is backed by an unprecedented coalition of businesses, charities, education bodies and government.

It was founded by the four leading UK business membership organisations – the British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors. Their Director Generals sit on Make Your Mark’s board. It is also supported by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

The Realise programme, which is run by the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and funded by the European Regional Development Fund, was developed to increase the capacity and capability of social enterprises. As part of the programme, micro clusters of social enterprises have been created for five themed areas; Business Support; Environment and Sustainability, Health and Social Care; Employment and Training, and Education. The fifth theme covered by BHIG is for Education, Culture and Sport and is led by St. Paul’s Community Development Trust.