Melody Hossaini, Founder and CEO of InspirEngage International and charismatic candidate from the 2011 season of BBC1 show The Apprentice, hosted an innovative enterprise “Bootcamp” style event on Friday 28th June with the five schools who made it to the finals of this years’ Apax-Mosaic Enterprise Challenge, which is now entering its fifth year.
The Apax-Mosaic Enterprise Challenge competition kicks off during Global Entrepreneurship week, which this year runs from 18-24 November 2013. Students progress through the early stages of the Challenge in their schools, focussing on ethical business principles. The competition and mentoring begins in schools in January, with up to six hours of sessions provided by Mosaic up until spring half term. The competition closes in February and the five highest-scoring schools are invited to compete in a Grand Finals event which will be in March 2014.
Melody’s company, InspirEngage International, delivered the day of business skills training to the five finalist school teams in the Enterprise Challenge, including the winning ‘Silver Tie’ team from Slough and Eton College and the runners up from Beechwood School, also from Slough. Also taking part were Southfields Academy from London, Handsworth Wood Girls’ Academy from Birmingham and Carr Manor Community School from Leeds.
InspirEngage International Bootcamps are interactive and innovative skills training workshops that cover core modules including: equipping students with essential Life Skills to launch an enterprise. The students learned how they can take their interest in business, nurtured during Enterprise Challenge, and couple it with a passion for a good cause and make money out of doing something good for their community!
During the day, which was focused on social enterprise as a business option for the young people, the students were set a mini-task by InspirEngage: to come up with the most innovative social media campaign for their chosen cause. They were all extremely impressive, but the winning group had thought about a myriad of ways to achieve their objective using innovative social media techniques and they won the prize of recoding a short Instagram video which was posted to over 90,000 people!
Young people pitching their social media campaigns! “You’re only fat once!” VIDEO > by @melody_hossaini
Samina Akram, a Teacher at Beechwood School in Slough, commented: “Students were provided with the opportunity to learn how to become successful entrepreneurs and all of the processes involved in setting up and running a business. A thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking experience for the students.”
Jon Clements, a Teacher at Slough and Eton College said: “A brilliant day that really made the kids think about what it takes to become an entrepreneur. Melody was inspirational and the tips and advice that was given were priceless. An experience that will help build confidence in themselves and motivate them to go on and achieve what they want.”
Beechwood School student Sehar Bhatti, 15 commented: “Today was a fantastic day. I learnt a whole lot about social media enterprise – before I knew nothing about it, however today I have learnt a lot. I loved when we all mixed together with other schools who we competed with on the actual final of the competition. I will definitely use the skills in the future and I will apply it in today’s world as well.”
At the end of a packed day of workshops, Melody Hossaini, Founder and CEO, said: “At InspirEngage International we strongly believe there is a lot of value in working with young people to learn about social enterprise, and the Mosaic Enterprise Challenge winners proved that right! We were taken back with their passion and enthusiasm of turning their business ideas into concepts that benefit their community.”
Mosaic’s National Director Jonathan Freeman said of the day: “Wherever possible, Mosaic always seeks to deliver its programmes and enhance its learning experiences for young people in partnership with other, specialist organisations. InspirEngage is one of the world’s leading providers of skills training and youth engagement and is as passionate about supporting young people to fulfil their potential as Mosaic is!”
Live Unltd, who offer funding to young people to turn their ideas into reality, hosted the day and gave the venue to Mosaic and InspirEngage free of charge.
Find out more about this year’s Apax-Mosaic Enterprise Challenge
I am honoured to have been involved with Mosaic since its launch in 2007. It is a vital organisation: providing a positive platform for young people to explore the issues and opportunities facing them today. As a member of Mosaic’s speaker bureau, I spoke at its ‘Connecting Cultures’ event in...