|
Skills and Enterprise Training for College Success
Engaging Employers • Boosting Student Employability • Delivering Qualifications |
|
|
Call 0870 7201071 |
|
|
Castle College Ride the Wave Pilot
Castle College learners pitched their ideas in the Dragons’ Den, in a challenge which aimed to show them what is involved in creating their own business!
The students, who are currently completing courses in Digital Technologies, Engineering and Health & Social Care at the College, were set the task of producing a business plan for a new product or service.
The student’s ideas showed plenty of imagination and innovation, and were subject to the scrutiny of the ’Dragons’, including Castle College Principal Nick Lewis and Director of Technology & Construction, Jill Baggaley. They probed the students about their business plans, and were looking for sound financial assessments, marketing and promotional ideas, awareness of their target audience and a confident presentation of their idea.
The eventual winners were ’Better than Tomorrow’, a group whose tagline ’Making Tomorrow’s Ideas Today’ was applauded for its idea of providing temporary accommodation for those in difficult living conditions, such as disaster zones. ’Manage my Language’, whose product was designed to ’bring the world closer together’ put a new twist on the traditional materials used to learn a foreign language. Each team was very happy to go home with £60!
Other ideas included ’Media Flex’ the watch you could watch, ’Handi Help’, which provided a range of household repair services for a one off fee, and ’PSD’, the ’Portable Sun Device’, which with its tagline ’sun in your pocket’ aimed to banish those winter blues.
Sue Salter, Development Manager for Functional Skills said: "The purpose of the event was to give our students a taste of the world of enterprise, so they can link the vocational courses they are taking with us to later being able to set up a business of their own. The event was a great success as could be seen by their products and business action plans, and the dragons were very impressed with how innovative they were, and how well they worked together as a team."
Castle College are using the pilot to help decide how Ride the Wave will feature in their plans for 2009 / 10. A number of options are being considered including using the programme to deliver the NCFE Award and Certificate for Developing Enterprise Capabilities.
|
|
