Earlier this month I had the honour of judging the YE UK Finals in London. Teams of students from schools across the UK travelled from as far as the Orkney Islands, Gibraltar, Northern Island and across the UK, to proudly display and present the companies that they set up as part of Young Enterprise’s flagship Company Program.
Since the start of the Autumn school term, these young businessmen and women, mostly in their lower sixth form year, have set up their companies, sold shares to generate capital, brainstormed on product ideas, elected a board of directors, done market research and created a brand image. During the course of the year, the finalists have overcome many challenges and shown great tenacity and teamwork as part of the program, which embraces the ‘learning by doing’ philosophy of YE.
Judging Fjara, the YE Company from the Orkney Islands in Scotland that created beautiful sea glass jewellery
Prior to Finals day, the judges read each of the 14 companies’ annual report which starts to paint a picture of the scale of innovation and talent shown by these young entrepreneurs. On the day itself, this is brought to life as the judges meet the teams face to face, firstly by visiting each company at their exhibition stands where we fire questions at them about their business, and then listening to a prepared presentation from each team.
One challenge that all Young Enterprise companies face is that of communication. Almost without exception they learn pretty darned quick that clear and timely communications internally is critical to maintaining momentum on action plans and driving success. The best YE companies also realise that collaboration with external customers and suppliers is equally important. Those that leverage IT tools such as social media, web presence, blogs and video conferencing as well as more traditional email and good old fashioned paper communication techniques, are able to amplify their marketing and sales efforts whilst giving customers a personal choice on how to engage with them.
One of the awards, “Innovation in IT”, is sponsored by Cisco, and was awarded to Ed’Up, a company made up of GSCE students from Olchfa School in Swansea.
Ed’Up from Olchfa School in Wales impressed both Steph McGovern (from BBC Breakfast) and the Judges. Winners of the Cisco Innovation in IT Award!
These guys had created a smart phone app which helped students revise for GSCEs, through leveraging a rapid-fire ‘game’ which tests the students recollection of key words in each subject area. The fact that they had coded the application themselves, and overcome a number of IT challenges such as viruses and server crashes, was impressive enough, but the real genius of this company was how they leveraged social media to keep track of customer sentiment and respond quickly when there was a problem. In fact they even had a ‘Social Media’ Director on the board whose role it was to monitor on-line comments and nip any negativity in the bud whilst amplifying positive comments. It just goes to show how powerful social media has become to the brand reputation of companies across the globe.
The winners, a company called Orenda from St Helen’s School in Hertfordshire, had designed and created an innovative water bottle with a snack container. What impressed me about the girls from St Helen’s was how they had come up with an innovative idea, then developed the quality and aesthetics of it, eventually securing a Chinese company to manufacture the bottles to their specific design. The passion for the product was infectious, and they won a lot of hearts when interviewed by Steph McGovern on BBC Breakfast that morning! Orenda now goes on to represent the UK in the European Finals at the end of this month. You can track their progress @SipOSnack. We wish them good luck!
Orenda from St Helen’s School in North London – Winners of the UK Company of the Year!
Authors
