Birmingham community project wins national award

Standing Ovation Project rewarded by Deutsche Bank-backed foundation.

Five innovative creative businesses including a Birmingham community initiative have been awarded a share of £50,000 and ongoing world-class mentoring and support from leading UK experts to develop their businesses despite the Covid-19 blow to creative industries.

The latest competition organised by DBACE, supporters of visionary creative young entrepreneurs, opened in January 2020 with 428 applicants. Despite the onset of a lockdown and Covid-19 pandemic, the panel of established industry leaders and DBACE are proud to announce this year’s winners – set to launch or grow their social enterprises in the era of the New Normal.

The judging panel includes Jude Kelly CBE, Founder and Director of The WOW Foundation, Farooq Chaudry OBE, co-founder and Producer of Akram Khan Company, Lareena Hilton, Global Head of Brand Communications & CSR at Deutsche Bank AG, and Kevin Osborne, Founder and CEO of MeWe360.

Amongst the 2020 winners are Birmingham’s Standing Ovation Project, which seeks to build a community hub in the city via in-house workshops to develop a series of skills including music production, DJing, and singing skills, whilst building upon important softer social skills. Already working with 54 schools in thirteen cities across the East Midlands, West Midlands, and London, Standing Ovation Project seeks to further expand their reach across the UK and uplift children most in need.

With the creative industries contributing more than £100 billion to the UK economy every year, DBACE supports young UK-based entrepreneurs driven by a mission to build and sustain social value through enterprise. The programme is at the heart of Deutsche Bank’s global social enterprise programme, Made for Good, and has been delivered in partnership with not-for-profit creative industries incubator MeWe360 since 2019.

Five winners were announced on Tuesday 30th June via Zoom with winners, judges and facilitators streamed live via YouTube and Facebook.

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