TEESSIDE’S entrepreneurs of the future are to be selected by a team of experts tomorrow.

The Pick our Brains panel will take place at the Evening Gazette to select the final two entrants for this year’s If We Can You Can Challenge. The overall winner will be decided by a public vote on Thursday, June 23.

Five budding entrepreneurs have been short-listed to stand before the panel, which will give each of them the opportunity to introduce their business and demonstrate their passion and drive for making it a success.

The finalists will also be able to ask the panel judges questions and tap into the knowledge and experience from entrepreneurs who have established successful, profitable businesses.

The Pick our Brains panel is made up of a selection of successful regional businessmen and women including last year’s winner Chris Petty of Cornerstone Business Solutions, Tim Hutchinson of Outspace, Mark Easby, director of Better Communities, Steven Bell of Newman Scott and Darren Thwaites, editor of the Evening Gazette.

The judges on the panel will discuss each entrant’s potential for growth and business sustainability as well as looking for those all important entrepreneurial characteristics that will inspire others.

The Pick our Brains panels offer a number of opportunities for candidates.

The two entrants that the judges feel best embody the region’s spirit of entrepreneurship will be unveiled on Thursday, May 19, at the Entrepreneurs Forum Conference.

Evening Gazette readers will then have four weeks to vote for their overall winner of the Challenge, which will be unveiled on Thursday, June 23.

“I am honoured to have been invited back to be part of the panel after winning last year’s challenge,” said Mr Petty, winner of last year’s If We Can, You Can Challenge and director of Cornerstone Business Solutions.