Young entrepreneurs in the Dragon's Den

Budding young entrepreneurs braved the Dragons' Den yesterday to pitch their business plans to a major property investor for a college enterprise competition.

Ten teams of students from the College of West Anglia presented their ideas to Tom Harrison, chair-man of developer Morston Assets, in a recreation of the intimidating pressure of the popular TV series.

The teams will each start up and run their own companies with the help of a £100 grant from the Norfolk Charitable Trust.

In six months they will return to be judged on which team has made the most money, with the winners offered a year's lease-free tenancy at a planned enterprise centre in King's Lynn.

Mr Harrison grilled students on the college's BTEC business and retail course about their marketing and cash-flow forecasts.

The ideas on the boardroom table included card manufacturers, event management and smoothie-making companies.

"The ideas have been fantastically inventive," said Mr Harrison.

Roberta Puodziunaite, 17, was part of a multilingual student team running Euro Trip, a company offering a travel booking service to migrant workers speaking Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian or English.

"When we got our team together we saw our strength was that we spoke all these languages," she said.

"When I arrived here four years ago I faced these problems. There are so many people from these countries in Norfolk, and we did market research in their own language. They said booking transport was difficult and when we asked if they would use our service they said yes."

Course lecturer Isobelle Robinson said: "This competition has given the students a real taste for enterprise. The buzz of excitement within the groups has been inspirational and the quality of work produced so far has been amazing."

Morston Assets is the private development partner behind the Yours South Lynn Millennium Community, part of the Nar Ouse Regeneration Area project in Lynn.

When complete, the scheme could feature up to 900 homes and a purpose-built replacement campus for the college.

Mr Harrison said he hoped some of the student businesses could be among the first tenants in a state-of-the-art enterprise and entrepreneur-ship centre also planned for the development.

Courtesy of EDP

19 November 2008