In her column for Caerphilly Observer, businesswoman and Welsh ICE director Mandy Weston tells us about an inspiring competition for budding entrepreneurs.
It’s been another busy month in the Caerphilly business world but certainly no less inspiring.
The sun is out and seems to have brought with it the best in creative thinking amongst our young people, if a recent competition at Ysgol Cwm Rhymni is anything to go by.
I was invited to judge the ’Events R Us’ contest amongst Year 8 students during a day-long scheme organised by Careers Wales as part of the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification.
Teams were compiled across the year group and asked to put the commercial case for a winning events model – such as a leaver’s ball, sporting or music event – to our panel in a ‘Dragons Den’ style way.
The results were creative, inspiring and occasionally surprising, but above all encouraging in terms of what Caerphilly County and Wales as a whole can expect from its future entrepreneurs.
I certainly took a great deal of positivity away with me, and I’m sure my fellow judge Jo Thomas from Caerphilly workplace services firm PHS felt the same, judging by the standard of entries.
Following Welsh ICE’s recent launch event with the Minister for Economy – when we announced the intention to create 3,000 jobs using the ICE model by the year 2018 – it made me realise such schemes are vital to all local businesses in achieving their future targets.
As both supporters and proprietors of enterprise, the sooner we can impress the possibilities of starting a business on our young people’s minds the better, as encouraging them to think in entrepreneurial ways is relevant whether they chose to work for themselves or others.
It’s a notion whole-heartedly supported by the Welsh Government’s Youth Entrepreneurship Team, which Welsh ICE co-founder Gareth Iwan Jones and I are also delighted to be joining as Big Ideas Wales Role Models too.
Gareth and I will, along with many other role models, be visiting schools much more frequently in the future as part of our work to support the campaign, which encourages youngsters to be more entrepreneurial and ultimately help those interested in starting a business take their ideas forward.
Which could really help us hold on to that sunny outlook when you consider our youngest company proprietors here at Welsh ICE went into business aged just 17 and 18 respectively, and are still going strong two years later.