Member Article

Sheffield City College students win over Yorkshire ‘dragons’

Two students are being given support to develop their ideas into real businesses following a ‘Dragons Den’ style presentation to a panel of 15 entrepreneurs and advisers.

The students are from the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy (PJEA) at Sheffield City College. As part of their course, they had to develop and launch a micro business, and learn to pitch for investment or mentoring support.

Nineteen year old Hamza Mohamed of Sheffield is now receiving mentoring from Richard Baker of business coaching company The Executives Mentor to help him to develop his business idea, an online platform enabling young writers to publish articles called Zarwil.com.

He is also in discussions with Todd Hannula of Shine Business Centre in Leeds.

Hamza comments: “I’m keen to develop my business over the next few years and with so many options open, working with more experienced business people will be a huge help.”

Fellow student Ben Hindle, 21, of Sheffield, also caught the attention of the dragons when he presented his business idea; Ben has followed his ten year passion for model war gaming by developing a range of laser cut terrain elements for gaming battlefields.

Ben said: “At the event, I was approached by several entrepreneurs. One of these, Andrew Spurr, offered his support and invited me to get in contact with him when I set up the business and work on it full time following my graduation.

“I found the pitch a truly fantastic opportunity, and one that I would not have dreamt of happening when I was looking for business courses to apply for last summer. It was an exercise in self confidence and projection which I thoroughly enjoyed.”

Hamza and Ben were among 17 students who took part in the ‘pitch for investment’ event in partnership with Grant Thornton, which was hosted by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills as part of their full-time enterprise qualification.

Graeme Tidd, business enterprise manager of Sheffield City College, said: “The aim of the event was to give the students real life experience of pitching their business ideas in line with the PJEA ethos of ‘learning by doing’.

“It was a great opportunity for them to interact with entrepreneurs and business advisers.”

Paul Houghton, partner at business advisory firm Grant Thornton in Sheffield, said: “It’s always inspiring to see the enthusiasm and innovation coming from our next generation of entrepreneurs – some of the business ideas impressed the panel so much that the students were subsequently offered support to develop their businesses.

“As a firm, we believe that this type of enterprise education will play a key part in nurturing dynamic new businesses.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .