Students take the High Street Challenge

22 Nov 11

Hampshire Chamber of Commerce joined forces with WestQuay owners Hammerson, to sponsor this year’s Dynamo Enterprise Challenge which took place at SoCo Creative Hub located in Southampton’s Bargate Centre on 18 November. Dynamo challenge is an annual inter-University student enterprise challenge which has been running since 2006 and has received High Impact Awards in 2009 and 2010.

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011, students from the Universities of Winchester, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth and Southampton Solent looked at ways of using social enterprise concepts to breathe the life back into our high streets. Experts Dan Thompson, founder of The Empty Shops Network and Edwin Broni-Mensah a multiple award winning social entrepreneur and founder of Give me Tap, were on hand to provide excellent entrepreneurial business support as the students divided into 9 teams, worked out their business ideas and prepared presentations.

Chairing the judges was Chamber’s Ian Welland, who said, “Key to the exercise was three disciplines namely Enterprise, Social Enterprise and Innovation. The variety of creative ideas was amazing. Some ventures needed more work but three stood out as being potential viable businesses given further guidance. The Chamber is proud to be associated and working with the Colleges and Universities."

The winners were Culture Kitchen who presented a proposal that was researched and based on an interactive social inclusion set of workshops that would also create an entrepreneurial viable retail model.

Paying tribute to the inter-University partnership for this project and thanking the generosity of the sponsors, Richard Blackwell, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Southampton Solent University said: “The University very was proud to host this year’s Dynamo Enterprise challenge as enterprise and graduate employment are at the heart of our vision”

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