Latest news
2009
December 2009
Success was at the double for Sheffield Hallam University and its Enterprise Centre as former students who used its expertise to boost business scooped gongs at the Sheffield Business Awards.
Visit the Business Desk website for more information.
Funding site for university start-ups launches
Dragons' Den meets YouTube - video pitching website set to connect investors with UK universities' entrepreneurial talent
An exciting new website, nacueventures.com, has been launched - the first UK website to specifically connect university enterprise with investors.
Created by the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs (NACUE) and cmypitch.com, nacueventures.com enables university-based entrepreneurs to upload a video pitch for funding supported by summary business plan details. The site's launch comes at a time when university graduates face the toughest jobs market imaginable.
There are other online resources such as guides and advice, as well as offline support from incubation units and Enterprise societies. In addition, cmypitch hosts live pitching events entitled cmypitch Live, which are attended by business 'angels', family offices, seed funds and VCs. Investor-ready users of nacueventures.com will be able to pitch at the events.
School for Startups' Doug Richard, who is an advisor to NACUE, believes the site will meet a real need. 'Student entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the economy. NACUE brings a focus nationwide to that community and nacueventures.com is a great way for angel investors and the wider world to get a direct view of student opportunities. School for Startups is highly supportive of this initiative.'
£10,000 Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009
LiveWIRE currently has the following two awards competitions open for entry at www.shell-livewire.org/awards
£10,000 Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2009 (deadline for entries - 11 September 2009)
This prestigious award recognises the brightest new business talent by offering young entrepreneurs, aged 16-30 in their first 18 months of trading, with
- a £10,000 cash prize for their business
- significant publicity and media coverage coordinated by a top award winning PR agency
- external recognition and credibility for your business
- highlighted profile through the Shell LiveWIRE website
Previous winners include successful entrepreneurs such as James Murray-Wells from GlassesDirect.co.uk, Stewart Graham from Gael Force Group, Lucy Cohen from Mazuma Money and James Watt from BrewDog to name but a few.
To find out more please visit the Shell LiveWIRE website.
£1,000 Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Awards (Monthly)
New for 2009, our Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Awards competition offers up to five prizes of £1,000 each month for innovative new business ideas and projects.
If you're a young entrepreneur (aged 16-30) within the first six months of trading and think you've got an innovative new product or service, or an unusual idea for marketing, promoting or launching your business we want to hear from you!
To find out about recent winners please visit the Shell LiveWIRE website.
Free health and safety guidance
Would you like to better understand your legal duties with regards health and safety issues?
From September 2009, around 250 priced publications containing health and safety advice will be available to download for free from the Health and Safety Executive's website.
To download any of the free publications (from September), please visit www.hse.gov.uk.
Ideas Tap launches funding scheme for young creative entrepreneurs
Ideas Tap is an online magazine for young creative entrepreneurs and artists. They will launch their Ideas Fund on Monday 1 June 2009.
This is a new scheme for young creative entrepreneurs aged 16-26, providing funding of £500 - £5,000 for creative ideas.
Individuals/groups of individuals can apply to the Ideas Fund between 1 - 30 June for projects running for a limited period of time, such as
- projects and project development
- commissions and productions
- marketing and communications
- education activities
- multimedia development
- new networks, partnerships and collaborations
For more information please visit the Ideas Tap website.
Yorkshire Gold Business Club launched
Recently the Yorkshire Gold Business Club has been formed, with the aim of helping Yorkshire's businesses and entrepreneurs to recognise, negotiate and maximise the commercial opportunities available for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
There are currently 250,000 contracts still to be won for a wide range of activities - for more information please visit the Yorkshire Gold Business Club website.
Kanyekanye project - competition winners announced
Kanyekanye - Zulu for 'all together' - is a social enterprise run by Sheffield Hallam University students enrolled on the award winning Hallam Volunteering programme.
Through the Hallam Union and five Sheffield schools, students and pupils have been carrying out enterprising initiatives to raise funds for the community of Lesotho in Southern Africa, care of the Malealea Trust. And now two student volunteers and eight schoolchildren have won a trip to the beneficiary community, to see first-hand how the money will help disadvantaged people suffering from HIV and AIDS.
Hallam Volunteers Andrew Mitchell and Lara Smith were selected for the trip in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the project, which included mentoring pupils from Chaucer Enterprise and Business College, City School, Fir Vale, and Westfield Sports College.
Some of the student enterprises which helped raise the overall total of £2,387 for the Malealea Trust included organising a student disco, running a car washing service, and selling African jewellery, mobile phone socks, bags for life and Christmas cards.
Kirsty Ward, one of the winning students from Chaucer School, said, 'It's been amazing to help such a good cause and it's good to know all our hard work has paid off. I'm really excited about helping the local people of Malealea - it's a once in a lifetime experience.'
Shelia Quairney, Business and Enterprise Manager at Sheffield Hallam, said, 'The Kanyekanye project brings together student volunteers with local secondary schools, encouraging education and social enterprise. This unique project forges new links with the city of Sheffield and the community in Malealea, and we can be sure the money will be used to help improve the quality of life for the people living there.'
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