Tag Archives: start-ups

Student Pioneers perfect their pitching skills

Leave a reply

Aspiring entrepreneurs from across Birkbeck joined the latest Pioneer event to learn about developing confidence and performance in business pitches. 

Birkbeck’s Pioneer programme continued with a hands-on, practical session on Saturday 9 February, focused on developing enterprise students’ confidence and performance when pitching.

The session marked the halfway point of the programme, funded by Santander Universities, taking hundreds of Birkbeck students on a journey to develop their business ideas and entrepreneurial skills.

To start the day, students were given a task to pitch their idea to as many different people as possible during the regular morning coffee networking.

When the main workshop kicked off, the energy in the room was inspiring as Henry Blanchard, Speaker and Facilitator as well as Founder of Uganda International Marathon, welcomed the group of over 100 students. The initial session had everyone replicate a human yo-yo with students on their feet and back down again more times than we can remember.

Actor Jamie Satterthwaite provided a brilliant twist to the content, sharing valuable presenting tips from someone who has shared the stage with a range of impressive names. There was also an interesting warm up taking place so that students could prep their faces, voices and knees ready for a great pitch.

The activity continued with the group splitting into three smaller teams and taken through a series of mini training workshops to work in their delivery, imagination and content when pitching their business ideas.

Hugo Metcalfe, freelance speaker, writer and coach, co-ran the session with Henry and led one of the workshops while Birkbeck’s Bal Hothi and Jenna Davies joined in the action to complete the mini workshop series.

If that wasn’t enough activity, movement and energy for the morning, students were treated to more coaching to end the session with plenty of tips and advice to conquer their pitches and hone their presentation skills.

The session’s topic was particularly timely with applications now open for the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards, where students submit a two-minute video pitch about their business. It also coincides with the Pioneer competition, where students on the programme can put their skills into practice and enter their idea for the chance to pitch to a judging panel in June’s awards evening.

Pioneer continues next month and if you have any queries or would like to get in touch you can contact enterprise@bbk.ac.uk

Share

Hacking environmental challenges

Leave a reply

Birkbeck students hack their way to the top prize at Creative Hackathon hosted by six London Universities.

On Friday 25 January 2019, 70 students across six London universities kicked off a Creative Hackathon to develop innovative ideas to do something amazing and tackle some of the big environmental challenges facing London.

Among the group were 15 Birkbeck students who teamed up with their peers at University of the Arts London, University of East London, Loughborough University London, London South Bank University and UCL to form a range of teams who all pitched their ideas to a judging panel at the end of the hack on Saturday 26 January.

The event was organised by the six universities to inspire students to enter this year’s Mayor’s Entrepreneur competition, which has introduced a Creative sector category for the first time. Hosted at Loughborough University London’s campus at Here East in the Olympic Park, students heard from various speakers throughout the event including Omer El Fakir, Founding Partner at Blocks Wearables and previous competition runner up. Ryan Robinson, Co-Founder of Aeropowder joined the line up of speakers to inspire the teams while they also took part in a pitching masterclass and ideation session.

11 teams pitched their ideas to the judges with the winners, Team Cre8, taking the top prize for their sustainable start-up proposal and leaving with £2,000. Birkbeck students Sharmarke Gabayre, BSc Information Systems and Management, and Silvana Tavano, MA Digital Media Management, are part of Team Crea8 and are looking forward to entering their business idea into the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Competition next month with their teammates.

Students were able to build networks with like-minded people who are keen to make a difference, by fostering new collaborations to continue working on their innovative ideas.

Applications for the Mayor’s Entrepreneur competition close on the 17 February with finalists pitching to a judging panel in City Hall later in the year.

Share

Pioneer students talk lean business with successful bootstrapped entrepreneurs

3 Replies

Birkbeck’s aspiring entrepreneurs attended the third event in this year’s Pioneer programme, to learn how to grow a business with minimal resources from those who’ve done it.

On Saturday 12 January, Birkbeck’s Pioneer programme continued with over 120 students attending a morning of interactive talks from two successful entrepreneurs on lean business. Having gained tips and advice around innovation and ideation in session one, followed by different types of entrepreneurship in session two, students started to get actions in place to move their business ideas forward.

First up, Carlos Saba, Co-Founder of The Happy Start-up School took students on a journey to finding purpose in their business ideas, after a quick meditation session to get us all focused. Mindfulness and happiness are two areas that weaved their way throughout Carlos’ talk and it was clear that students related to this approach when thinking of their business ventures ahead of them.

Students were set a challenge to think about their ‘Happy Value Statement’, a tool included in the organisation’s Stop Dreaming Start Doing e-course, which is about “communicating what you do in the terms of solving people’s problems or making their lives better.” Carlos reiterated the importance of being more customer focused to help students get a clearer idea of the real value they are offering.

Part two of the session welcomed Julie Creffield, Founder of global fitness movement Too Fat to Run and award-winning blogger, author and life coach, to share her start-up story in successfully bootstrapping her business. Julie’s session provided a great follow on from Carlos, giving students practical examples and advice on getting their business started and beyond with minimal resources.

The big message of the day was to Think Bigger; aiming higher than you initially thought of and setting the bar beyond what you think is possible. Julie works with organisations globally to think bigger, behave better and make more of an impact and this message spurred students to take action after the workshop, ready to push forward with their ventures.

The Pioneer programme, in partnership with Santander Universities, takes students on a journey to develop their business ideas and their entrepreneurial skills. The monthly workshops continue in February with a hands-on pitching workshop.

Share