The students were given a unique
opportunity on Thursday 28th March, a chance to develop new business
ideas with the support and advice of volunteers from a range of locally-based
employers including Jaguar Landrover and Corso.
Here is a blog about
the day written by one of the business experts.
 |
| One of the winning teams with a 'business expert' |
I spent Thursday last week
at Cadbury College in
Birmingham, UK with a group of about 75 16-18 year old students that had
decided that university wasn't for them or had reasons why they couldn't go to
university. This was also a closed day for the college, so those that
turned up must have been motivated!
The event was organized by 'Working Knowledge'
in the UK with the aim of providing a bridge between students and
industry. The event was slickly run, with myself and
10 other business 'experts' including management teams from salesforce.com, Jaguar Land
Rover and other local organisations, being prepped for what was to follow.
The students had been split into teams and
had to come up with a business idea which would be turned from a concept to a
business during the day.
.jpg) |
| Students discuss their business ideas |
Our first action, was to enter the sports hall where we were descended upon by the students tryng to earn tokens
by selling us their ideas and asking for tokens. A winning team was
picked based on the most tokens collected.
Each of the 'experts' then joined a group
of students who asked questions ranging from what employers are looking for
through to how to write a resume. We then took a break, whilst the students
resumed their activities and we prepared for the next session.
I had an operations advisory role in the
green team. over the next 45 minutes, teams of students would approach us
in a formal manner and ask questions about their idea and how it relates to
operations and ask for advice. The other experts advised on promotions
(sales/marketing) and money. These were great sessions, and you could see
the young adults, changing during the day in terms of confidence, communication
skills and open ended questioning.
After these sessions, we graded each of the
teams. The next stage was for the teams to create
presentations of their ideas.
We assembled as groups of 4 experts to
listen to four groups present their ideas in a 'dragons den' type format.
We were given time to ask questions of the groups.
The styles were all different but the
transformation from the morning to the afternoon was amazing. You could
see that the students were like sponges and had soaked up everything that was
put to them earlier in the day.
The presentations were excellent and we
awarded prizes to an 'outstanding individual', who in our case was 'Will', and
to team 'c' who gave a great team performance.
This was a fantastic use of one day of my
time and something I found very rewarding.
I will definitely be doing this again.
Martin Owen, CEO Corso
