Recently I had the pleasure of being invited to the University of Suffolk once again to meet students aiming to be young entrepreneurs. This time my visit would be to listen to pitches around their business ideas as part of a panel, Dragons Den style.
It was clear that the entrepreneurial spirit burns within from a young age, and I can only commend all the students enthusiasm and hard work and thought that went into their pitches. There really are some stars of the future there at the University of Suffolk.
All except one of the pitches were based on app and technology development and it is interesting to see young people’s views of the business world, but also listen to some of the questions they had for the panel. I could see that it would be easy for bright ideas to become forgotten or squashed through lack of support, mentoring or just good advice. The business world is a daunting one, especially when you are in the closed world of a college or university, and this is why it is important for students to get out and experience the working environment from an early age, where the realities are somewhere different than the dream in many ways.
Among the business ideas were a co-working office space based in Sicily, an app to search for the best financial investments linked to advice and a marketing support business for start-ups.
While many of these ideas were just ideas, myself and the other dragon’s could see huge potential here and I look forward to hearing how all the students at the University of Suffolk have progressed into their future business careers.
