All eyes on four youngest entrepreneurs

Jun 24 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

FOUR schoolgirls plan to launch a business with their idea to make mobile phones more secure, which has already earned them a place in the regional final of a technology contest.

Sarah Wilson and Lucy Charlton, both 11, and 12-year-olds Nicola Harkus and Kelly Whitfield, of Jarrow School, put together the idea for Phone Friends to enter the Big Ideas ICT Youth Challenge.

Their idea uses biometrics and iris technology to make phones secure and the theft of handsets pointless.

Sarah’s mum Carol Metcalfe, who is the UCanB enterprise champion at South Tyneside business support organisation Tedco, is the group’s mentor and they also receive support from South Tyneside Means Business.

The girls are about to become the youngest business people to launch an enterprise through Tedco. Carol said: “The development of their project has been staggering in that it has grown into a fully-fledged business idea in a very short space of time.

“There really is no stopping them. They are full of ideas and when they are together it’s amazing to watch them go.”

The girls plan to develop their enterprise further with a phone that allows limited emergency calls to family or teachers when there is no credit left, and to input information about school timetables and bus routes.

Newcastle firm UKL Biometrics has been helping the girls put their idea into practice and the team are receiving a week of intensive business training at Otterburn Camp in Northumberland, leading up to the Big Ideas final on June 30.