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Mosaic Enterprise Challenge 2017 Winner in Scotland revealed

A team of young entrepreneurs from Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow, has won the Scotland Regional Final of the 2017 Enterprise Challenge competition, a flagship education initiative driven by Mosaic, HRH The Prince of Wales’ mentoring charity and part of The Prince’s Trust.

‘Team Holyrood’ beat stiff competition from teams from Bellahouston Academy and Shawlands Academy with their idea for a tablet and microphone device that would allow teacher instructions to be translated into various languages. There are over 30 languages spoken at Holyrood Secondary School.

The competing teams pitched their ideas in a Dragons Den-style event to a prestigious panel of judges including Jawad Khursheed (Managing Director of Vitality Optical), Siobhan Mackenzie (award winning Scottish fashion designer) and Maqbool Rasul (of the Rasul Group and Mosaic Scotland Ambassador).

Team Holyrood will now progress to the Enterprise Challenge Grand Final in London on 17th May where they will compete against winning schools from the North West, West Midlands, London, Yorkshire and South East for the chance to become national champions.

The overall winning team will win a prize of £2,500 for their school plus a further £500 to invest in developing their business idea and making it a commercial reality. Previous winners have also enjoyed tea at 10 Downing Street and a unique tour of Clarence House.

Team Holyrood featured pupils Asad Khan, Hassan Ahmad, Iman Khan. They said: “Being involved in the Mosaic project has been a wonderful journey. It has also taught us different business skills, teamwork, communication and confidence. Mosaic mentors have been a great help sharing their experience. We are very happy and proud to win and represent Scotland.”

The keynote speaker at the event was Kawser Quaser, BBC Scotland weather presenter. She said: “It’s been a wonderful event and an absolute pleasure to be a part of it. The students were brave, articulate with great ideas and their pitches very impressive. They should all be so proud to get to this stage of the competition and I wish the group going ahead to the finals every success.”

Chairman of the judging panel Maqbool Rasul, said: “It’s been a brilliant experience judging the young people today, and especially watching them develop their entrepreneurial skills this early through their schools. The Mosaic Enterprise Challenge is a fantastic programme and I’m honoured to be the Ambassador for Mosaic Scotland. It was a tough competition and I’m sure Team Holyrood will do Scotland justice at the Grand Finals!”

Atta Yaqub, Scotland Regional Manager for Mosaic, said: “Team Holyrood did a great job pitching their brilliant idea. That said, all the teams did very well indeed and I didn’t envy the judges having to make a choice.

I am very proud that Scotland is home to so many brilliant young minds and I’m certain many will go on to be our business leaders of the future. A special thank you must go to our team of volunteer mentors who give up their time to coach, support and inspire the pupils taking part.“

Run annually, Mosaic’s Enterprise Challenge is a national competition that aims to inspire knowledge, raise aspirations, confidence, self-efficacy and long-term employability among secondary school pupils from some of the most deprived communities across the UK. Supported by specialist, volunteer mentors from across the business community, students compete for six-weeks in an online business game where they must develop, market and sell a new product.

For more information on Mosaic, visit www.mosaicnetwork.co.uk, email mosaic@princes-trust.org.uk or call +44 (0)203 222 5913.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mosaic .