BUSINESS BRAINS

Jul 9 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

YOUNG entrepreneurs from Hartlepool take their company to London next week for the final in a nationwide competition to find the best young business brains in Britain.

LanguAges, which puts the fun into learning French, is the brainchild of a team from the English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College.

It will go up against ideas developed by schools throughout the UK at the Park Lane Hotel in London on July 16 when the final of the prestigious HSBC Young Enterprise awards will be held. Winners go on to represent their country at a European event.

The Hartlepool entrepreneurs created a pack that includes French games, shopping, clothes and class card games along with CD Roms, which LanguAges sells to schools and parents.

A spokesperson for the group said: “We have an outstanding team and we feel our company has great potential for the future.”

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Catherine Marchant, chief executive of Young Enterprise North East (YENE), said winning the Company of the Year title at the regional finals had been tough. “The standard of entries has been exceptionally high. The innovation from all of the student companies has been outstanding.

“The winners stood out as they put some real thought into the nature of the product, their business and their market. It’s been a fantastically good competition.”

Also among the regional award winners was Carmel RC College, Darlington, with individual awards going to:

Dean Jeffries from Catcote School, Hartlepool;

Dave Spensley from Aycliffe Fabrications, Newton Aycliffe, who acted as a business advisor, and

Audrey Williams of Carmel RC College, Darlington, who won a Link Teacher of the Year Award.

English Martyrs also won Most Creative Company Award.

Recent research revealed that young people who take part in the Young Enterprise Company Programme at school are twice as likely to go on to start their own businesses when they leave.

The six-month study, which was carried out by FreshMinds consultancy for Young Enterprise, showed that 14% go on to start up and run their own company, compared to 7% among those who don’t participate in Young Enterprise school programmes.

It found that frequently perceived barriers to starting up a business – including fear of failure, workload, lack of confidence, lack of understanding, managing people, managing budgets, lack of skills, lack of knowledge – were all seen to be less significant among Young Enterprise alumni.