A group of young entrepreneurs from Alleynes High School represented the West Midlands at the national finals of this year’s Young Enterprise competition.
The Alleyne’s team, Versaleaf, represented the West Midlands at the HSBC National Innovation Award at The Savoy in London last week. Versaleaf were one of 12 student companies competing at the event. They took part in an intense three-day event which involved formal interviews, a corporate dinner and a high-profile presentation.
The team were once again greeted with success as Alison Norbury, Versaleaf managing director, won the Founders Leadership Award, beating off competition from all the other students in the national competition.
Versaleaf’s product is based on the Japanese art of Furoshiki, where material is knotted together to form various shapes and sizes of bags. The team have set up their own website at www.knotthebag.co.uk, where they have been making significant sales using PayPal.
Impressed with the calibre of all the students, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote, in a special dedication for the awards programme: ”The jobs and growth of the future will be built on the efforts of the people who are prepared to take a risk, roll up their sleeves and start and grow a business.
“That is why I am so determined to get behind Britain’s budding entrepreneurs and to make the next decade the most entrepreneurial and the most dynamic in our nation’s history.
”Young Enterprise is vital in fostering the culture of enterprise we need right across our country. So I am delighted to be able to support these awards, to celebrate the achievement of hundreds of thousands of young people who have taken part in a Young Enterprise programme this year and, of course, to congratulate today’s outstanding finalists.”
The Awards ceremony at London’s Savoy Hotel marked the finale of a year which saw 30,000 teenagers from over 1,415 schools set up more than 2,200 companies as part of the ‘Company Programme’ organised by Young Enterprise, the UK’s leading enterprise education charity.
The programme enables young people to work with experienced business mentors and gain cutting-edge business and entrepreneurship skills through hands-on experience. Early indications suggest that between them these young business start-ups have this year generated over £2 million turnover – a particularly inspiring achievement given the current difficult economic climate.
John May, CEO of Young Enterprise, welcomed the Prime Minister’s support. He said: “There is a wealth of talent amongst our young generation, as demonstrated today, which we all should be enormously proud of. They have proven that you are never too young to start your own business.
”Young Enterprise is delighted to enable these young people to learn the necessary skills to help them succeed in the future – whether that be in further education, the workplace or starting up their own businesses – all of which will boost future economic growth in this country. But we must do more. We need to get more young people involved and to do that, we need more businesses to enable their staff to volunteer and pass on their skills and more support from government and educators to make this happen.’’
3 comments
Dominique Hibell
Young Enterprise was such an unforgettable experience and being able to spend 2 days in the Savoy in London and presenting there was incredible!