Students from St. Anne’s RC High School in Manchester celebrate being crowned champions of the North West as they go on to represent the region in The Prince’s Trust Enterprise Challenge National Finals 2019. They successfully fought off tough competition from the other top finalist schools in the region, beating pupils from Manchester Academy, Our Lady’s High School and Fred Longworth School.
Momen, Joshua, Ruby and La’Wayne (all aged 13-14) – collectively known as Team Better Stockport – went on to win the North West Enterprise Challenge 2019 held yesterday at KPMG in Manchester. The team won the judges over with the social enterprise idea of creating a Bike Security System app – helping to keep the community safe while improving the health and fitness of young people and reducing carbon emissions.
The students pitched their social enterprise ideas, Dragons Den-style in front of highly acclaimed judging panel from a spectrum of backgrounds that included: Andrew Stone, Director Business Restructuring – KPMG, Sarah Driver, Enterprise Advisor and Luke Swann, Director – The Prologue.
Keynote speaker on the day was Social Mobility Commissioner and Founder of Xplode Magazine, Saeed Atcha MBE. Recently honoured in this years Queen’s Honour’s List 2019, Saeed also returned as a past fellow Enterprise Challenge mentee; who’s team came third in competition in the year they competed.
On winning The Prince’s Trust Enterprise Challenge North West Regional Final, Team Better Stockport said:
“This feels like such a once in a lifetime moment for us and don’t think any one of us thought we would get this far – let alone win! Thank you so much to our amazing mentor Andrew. We’re so excited for London.
Team Better Stockport, St Anne’s RC High School
“It has been a really fabulous afternoon. Congratulations to all the students who participated today and best of luck to all the teams in the future!”
Chair of Judges, Fiona Worral
St Anne’s RC High School will now go on to the final stage of the competition where they will compete against the other top five finalist schools from across the country each representing their region at the National Grand Finals – from the North West, Yorkshire, West Midlands, London, the South East and Scotland. The students will now use the next four weeks to perfect their proposals in a bid to be crowned National Champions of The Prince’s Trust Enterprise Challenge 2019 when they next meet on the 02nd May. The teams are not only competing for the title but £3000 prize money for their schools (£500 of which as seed money towards launching their social enterprise idea.)
The Enterprise Challenge, sponsored by the Apax Foundation, is an annual, national competition during which secondary school students aged 11-16 years old learn about establishing and running a business. Experienced business professionals mentor and support the team through a business simulation game, with the highest-scoring team in each region creating their own social enterprise business ideas and pitching them in regional and national finals.
This year 61 schools and over 2500 students in six areas of the UK including the South East, the West Midlands, the North West, in Yorkshire, London and Glasgow have participated.
The Enterprise Challenge National Finals takes place on Thursday 02nd at Hogan Lovells, London.
Follow the competition on #PTEnterpriseChallenge
