Students are the Business!
09 December 2011
Our business students really do have what it takes to become tomorrow’s entrepreneurs – winning business enterprise competitions at Royal Holloway and Middlesex Universities and also at West Thames College, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Lord Sugar, eat your heart out!
A Level Business students represented West Thames at the Royal Holloway University Social Enterprise Challenge and won first prize for the best campaign idea in a contest to create awareness for International Peace Day. One student was also offered a work placement with the Sisters and Brothers Creative Agency based in central London.
Ten first year BTEC Level 3 business students (pictured) competed in the Middlesex University Business Challenge to develop strategies to help business organisation Future Ventures expand despite the volatile economic environment that it operated in. The West Thames team were declared overall winners, beating teams from 25 other colleges. They were also voted as the most professional team.
West Thames College hosted its own Business and Marketing Challenge on 1December. Second year BTEC Level 3 business students were given a live brief to create a new product or service. The six teams had just four hours to come up with a business idea and develop a business and marketing plan. Product ideas included a PC that could be worn around the wrist as a bracelet, a USB stick with fingerprint recognition, and a 3-in-1 card combining an ID card, bank card and Oyster card.
Each team had just five minutes to pitch their business idea to a panel of judges – just like Dragon’s Den! “All the business ideas were both innovative and marketable and it was difficult to select one overall winner,” said Nicola Ingle, Head of Strategic Marketing at the college.
Three prizes were awarded:
Best Innovation Award
e-USB: A USB stick which allows you to upload documents onto a password protected ‘cloud’.
Best Pitch
Tropolar: A fashionable jacket with a built-in heating and cooling element – ideal for extremes in temperature.
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Best Marketing Plan
Auto View: Spectacles that auto-adjust to suit different conditions such as high UV, close work or distance vision, and prescription changes.
