ZENEN Business Challenge

On Wednesday 19th March Year 8 students from West Exe travelled to St James High School to take part in a ‘Zenen Business Challenge’ day, where they competed in teams against St James Year 8 students. Coached by undergraduate entrepreneurs  from the University of Exeter Innovation Centre, the teams worked to create a sales and marketing campaign and to produce a business plan to justify why they should be awarded the £3000 start-up funding. At the end of the day they gave a team presentation to a judging panel of teachers and business people.

The objective of the Challenge was to understand the components and building blocks that make a business function, how they are fused and interact, and how the individuals are capable of creating something collectively that they would struggle to achieve individually.

The emotion and drive that the students displayed was infectious, with some very creative ideas, well expressed and enthusiastically delivered. There was clearly competition between the teams and each had their strengths, with St James Team 2 narrowly edging out West Exe Team 2 to win. Their prize? A guided tour of University of Exeter and the Innovation Centre, finishing with a 3D printing demonstration courtesy of ChocEdge (https://chocedge.com/) in CHOCOLATE!

Thanks to David Solomides, Director of Zenen Education Services, who organised the event, and to Joe Pearce of the University of Exeter Innovation Centre and the students Mithil Shah, Tom Charman and Nick O’Ferrall who gave their time to support it. We are looking forward to an even bigger Exeter inter-school business challenge in the next academic year!