The drive to boost the North-East's entrepreneurial culture has had an encouraging first quarter. Rebekah Ashby reports on Launch Pad's first three months on the road and discovers a busy start to its journey.
More than 1,000 people have stepped on board a Launch Pad during 50 different events held in the North-East over three months.
That's an encouraging start to a journey, which hopes to take the self-employment message to grassroots level across the North-East.
Also known as "inspiration on wheels', the Launch Pads are two mobile enterprise vehicles funded by grants from Tyne and Wear Partnership and regional development agency One NorthEast.
The Launch Pad tour has been gathering pace over the last few months with numerous entrepreneurial events offering support and inspiration to people across the region.
The project is led by the North-East Enterprise Bond, a private sector-led initiative which last year raised a bond from a range of organisations, companies and individuals across the region with the aim of transforming the North-East's enterprise culture.
North East Enterprise Bond chief executive Diane Fisher-Naylor says: "Now that Launch Pads are on the road and engaging with different communities across the region we're really starting to see their potential in driving the enterprise message home.
"By engaging with a wide range of projects and people in conjunction with some of the North-East's leading enterprise partners, we're able to identify where our focus should be, how we add value and which partnerships are likely to be important as we develop our future programme."
Among the events, the Launch Pads visited the Big Ideas Centre in Sunderland which welcomed 35 teams of young people from schools and colleges throughout the region to present their ideas on ICT to a national judging panel.
The vehicle was used as a staging area for the teams to run through their pitches and perfect their presentations, with 17 teams succeeding in progressing to the next stage of the national ICT challenge competition.
The Big Ideas Centre's Lisa Smith says: "The Enterprise Bond Launch Pad is the perfect vehicle to promote creativity and entrepreneurship and our results from using it as part of the Big Ideas ICT Youth Challenge have been fantastic.
"To have the ability to offer an interactive space where the students can rehearse, prepare and develop their ideas has been invaluable throughout the competition and for the development of Big Ideas in general."
A group of North-East girls used the Launch Pads at events in both Newcastle's Haymarket (Discover your Potential) and Middlesbrough (Girls Mean Business).
Both events - part of Tedco's Building up to Business initiative - were geared towards showing young women that the North-East is an ideal location for business through showcasing some of the region's successful female entrepreneurs. Tedco enterprise and education manager Liz White says: "The work the young women involved in the Building up to Business project produced is of an amazing standard."
Organised by teenagers aged 15 to 17 from various schools and colleges as part of a strategy to involve more women into enterprise, the `Discover your Potential' event brought together young women who had shown an interest in setting up a business as a future career.
It resulted in more than 100 participants signing up to find out more about a career as an entrepreneur.
Ms Fisher-Naylor says: "Already we're beginning to see the sparks that create the budding entrepreneurs of the future and are delighted with the positive feedback we've had so far both from our enterprise partners and the people who have come on board and taken part in activities."
* For further information on the Launch Pad programme visit www.launchpadnortheast.org
* AS a panel member of the Future Entrepreneurs Education programme, Durham event management company She's Gott It! used the Launch Pad to raise self-esteem, enthuse and motivate school children.
Pupils from Hermitage School in Chester-le-Street used the vehicle to help understand the importance of their enterprising attitude when it comes to their career choices through the Bang On Target workshop. The day was designed to raise awareness among year nine pupils of the entrepreneurial possibilities open to them.
Workshops in drumming, drama, creative business and journalism were undertaken by 161 pupils, with goals set for participants throughout the day.
She's Gott It! business development manager Stephanie Povey says: "We received extremely positive feedback with many requests to go back and do it again."
Meanwhile, Women Into Enterprise used the Launch Pad as a recruitment tool in Sunderland and Northumberland to promote interest in their enterprise programme aimed at women in communities who do not traditionally see themselves as being enterprising but are interested in exploring their enterprising potential and ideas, and women who are interested in enterprise.