Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship runs Start-up School for students/graduates across the Liverpool City Region
Following the successful launch of The Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship’s Start-up School in April for 16-19-year-olds in local schools and colleges across Liverpool, the Centre ran its second in-person school in June.
The June edition of the 3-day programme focused on supporting students and graduates 19+ across the Liverpool City Region connected with the Entrepreneurs Monthly Meet-up with 6 colleges and universities across Merseyside.
The Level One accredited Start-up School involves individuals learning about entrepreneurship, the processes to successfully design, develop and create a commercial or social enterprise, to create a pitch and to practice pitching that to tutors and peers to gain feedback.
The latest Start-up School ran from 28 - 30 June at the University of Liverpool International College. The first two days provided entrepreneurship training and the third day took place in the Management School for the pitching practice and opportunity for some of the participants to pitch to panellists to win some start-up seed funding.
Richard Leighton, Entrepreneur in Residence, and Dr Zeineb Djebali, Senior Lecturer in the Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship, delivered and facilitated the sessions across the three days with the help of six entrepreneurs to provide insights into setting up and running successful ventures, including Grace Harrison of Kitty’s Laundrette and Anthony Polanowski of Decent Donuts.
Some of the attending students had the opportunity to pitch for seed funding in front of a panel that consisted of local experts from an investment company River Capital and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Business and Innovation function. Out of the participating students, 16-year-old Khan Odita was the winner of the first Start-up School pitching competition.
Funding grants of £750, £500, £250, £200, £175 and £150 were awarded to the winners with a total of £2000+ in funds provided to the young entrepreneurs. The winners of the grants are also provided with mentorship and ongoing support from the University of Liverpool Entrepreneurship Society and the Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship.
Winners included Talal Ahmed, an MSc Business Analytics and Big Data student who is setting up a platform to provide online educational courses connected with tech alongside Molly Kelly, a graduate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation that’s creating a physical and virtual network to support women looking to start-up.
In addition to all this participants were provided with refreshments and lunch across the three days off Burnt Orange and a graduation ceremony with certificates, photos, and a small celebration party with refreshments provided by Hot Mess Pizza.
The Start-up School initiative kindly received Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) funding to run the pilot, with the purpose of refining the experience and running additional programmes for young entrepreneurs in the future.
This includes launching to secondary schools across Liverpool in the new academic year to deliver this experience and other Enterprise Education activities across years 7-11. As part of its impact mission, The Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship aims to help more school, college and university students/graduates in Liverpool to start up and create commercial and social impact in the region.