IN PHOTO: Rebekah Cox, Thomas Smails, Dane Appleby,, Bethany McDougall, Sommer Brown, Angel Woods, Blake Charlton, Brandon Cairns
A successful county wide business initiative has launched its 2017 competition for secondary schools. The competition, entitled Future Business Magnates, led by Business Durham, has officially started with over 23 local schools taking part. The competition, established in 2005, was designed to introduce young entrepreneurs to the world of business and enterprise. Each school enters a team of aspiring entrepreneurs; the teams are then supported by a local business partner to guide them through the competition. Woodham Academy’s Year 8 team of students are keen to get their business ideas underway. Supporting the students at Woodham Academy this year will be representatives from Aycliffe based firm, Ebac. Student, Rebekah Cox, said; ‘I am looking forward to starting our project. I have been trying to think of lots of ideas since our first meeting and looking on the internet for inspiration. I hope we do really well.’ After establishing a business name and deciding their individual roles, the students will meet weekly to work on their business idea alongside their business mentor. This year’s business theme focusses on ‘Connecting County Durham.’ The groups of students will be encouraged to think about a niche for creative connections, physical connections, or connections in everyday life, from manufacturing to communication locally or globally. All new ideas are welcomed. The competition will see the teams compete in a number of tasks where they will receive points for their performance. The competition’s media partners, Star Radio, will be sharing challenge results throughout the competition using the hashtag #FBM2017. Teams will compete until June, when the Grand Gala Dinner will take place at the Xcel Centre, here the winners of individual categories and the overall winners will be announced. Gary Chaplin, Enterprise Development Manager at Business Durham, said; ‘This is the 12th year of the competition. We are looking forward to an exciting time working with the budding entrepreneurs, who will no doubt come up with some brilliant ideas. The Business Durham team wish all schools the best of luck.’
