Students from across the UK compete to be named Company of the Year.
Teams of enterprising students from across the UK went head to head to be named Best Overall Company at the Young Enterprise Company Final, supported by HSBC, on the 7th July at the Emirates Stadium in London.
Keye Safety from King Edward VI School in Stourbridge took home the Best Presentation Award and were the Company of the Year 2nd Runner Up, for their emergency contact information disc which fits into tax disc holders in cars.
There were fourteen teams representing regions across the UK including Northern Ireland, Scotland and Gibraltar, competing for eight awards. The teams had all gone through a rigorous series of local and area finals to reach the UK Final.
The Company Programme is Young Enterprise’s flagship enterprise education programme, and is supported nationally by HSBC. Young people set up and run a business, or social enterprise, for an academic year guided by local business mentors. The winners of the UK Final will go on to represent the UK at the European Final later in July in Switzerland.
Young Enterprise alumna turned BBC business presenter Steph McGovern hosted the evening, alongside multi-award winning young entrepreneur Ben Towers – recently named Number One on The Times Magazine Superteen Power List. They were joined by guest Bianca Miller, apprentice runner up 2014, Sharmadean Reid, Founder of WAH Nails and Ariel Eckstein, VP of Global Client Relationships, LinkedIn, who took to the stage to share their personal business stories.
Michael Mercieca, Chief Executive, Young Enterprise said: “I, and the judges, were hugely impressed by all of the students and their products. They have done amazingly well to reach the UK Final out of the 20,000 students that took part this year. Through dealing with real issues that businesses face, they have developed strong employability skills such as creativity, resilience and communication. Well done to all of them and congratulations to the winners.”
Antonio Simoes, CEO of HSBC Bank plc, said: “Programmes such as this give young people a taste of the real world. HSBC volunteers work with student teams across the UK and help them develop during the academic year. I believe that this is the type of initiative which will help rebuild trust in business.”
