WINNERS

CHARLIE HOGG

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY

JOINT FIRST PRIZE WINNER

Through the Go Help charity (of which he is a trustee and Chairman of the Board) Charlie drove a fully-equipped, ex-NHS ambulance to Mongolia. The project then snowballed and more than 10 emergency vehicles were sent to the region. Now he intends to roll out the project to Nepal and Africa.

‘It was an honour to win the first prize and I’m keen that it will inspire others to do something even more exciting. I would be delighted if the awards inspire another 20 students to get involved in another 20 projects around the world.

‘The Ambulances for Mongolia project has come to completion as there are now enough ambulances to cover all the main district hospitals. We actually have 21 ambulances in the country. We also delivered 4X4s to Mongolia -- both pick up trucks and land cruisers -- to cover community-based projects such as doing the school run.

‘We are now working on school projects in Nepal which is very exciting. We are planning on delivering eight schools all in one valley community, each school costing around £4,000. We’re also involved in building a 50 bed hospital and that has already been started. One of the ways we are funding this is by organising Everest Base Camp Treks. People who want to do the trek pay a fee, 50 per cent of which goes on the trek and 50 per cent of which goes to fund the hospital project.

‘I get a buzz out of doing all this, it’s fun and interesting and things are looking up for 2010. We are looking at projects in Cambodia, Uganda and Ghana as well as Nepal. 87 people have each already pledged £1,500 to us which means we can now also take on a member of staff, as my time is more valuable looking after other things rather than doing all the admin!’


TOM WEBSTER

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY

JOINT FIRST PRIZE WINNER

Tom was a committee member for Manchester University’s rugby team and did loads of fund raising for the club. He also coached rugby at Manchester Grammar School which he really enjoyed. He has set up a company that does research into energy conservation in property.

‘I had a brilliant internship at Enterprise, it was absolutely great. It was very different from what I thought it would be as it was a management trainee thing.  They have no staff just management at every level, working their way up. I was on the bottom rung but my branch manager was brilliant at giving me as much responsibility as possible from early on and for the last two weeks of my internship I ran the branch in Redhill in Nottingham. The big thing for Enterprise is customer service and I’d never had experience with much customer service before, not just face-to-face customer service but organising policy and training strategies.

‘While I was there we had a customer who threatened to blow up our branch, and then one Saturday morning a bunch of undercover police turned up and arrested a chap at gun point. There were probably 60 police there, some with machine guns and police dogs. I had to train these undercover guys to do a customer call back in order to get this chap to come back in and renew his contract and when he did they arrested him.  I got a letter from the Chief Superintendent of Nottinghamshire Police thanking me for my assistance.

‘Now I’m working on a report for my dissertation for Manchester City Council which they are using for policy and agenda setting on environmental issues, and energy generation and conservation in property. I’m not out to save the world but to make this country more environmentally friendly. In two or three years I’d like my company to be strong nationwide with a brand name as a consultancy and known within the industry. There’s a lot of work coming up what with the Olympic decommissioning, and the rugby world cup 2015, and I see myself being involved in that heavily.’

KYLE CLARKE

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY

RUNNER-UP

Kyle set up Consult Connect, a marketing research company working in the student market. He also helped promote Newcastle Falcons RFC, Newcastle’s Ice Hockey team, and the Para Olympic and Olympic teams ? so he has been involved with a lot of sport! Now he has contracts with Newcastle City Council to run market research on the attitudes of students. He has also set up Stulets.com, a letting agency for landlords wanting to let to students, and a tourism magazine called The KnowHow.

‘I’m looking to enjoy what I’m doing and hopefully be successful at it. When you work for yourself you put in a lot of hours, but I like being able to choose when I do and do not work; the freedom to work by yourself.  KnowHow magazine didn’t go to plan this summer so I was looking for an internship to develop my skills and I saw the Real World Awards and thought “why not? I’ve got time on my hands.” I’m not really one for sitting around. I did my internship at Dorchester ? I’ve never been on a job that is so varied, it changed from one minute to the next and what I’ve learned is that sometimes there’s no point in making plans, you’ve got to flow with whatever goes on. It can be quite stressful and you have to learn to take that in your stride, or it can really bug you out. In my first two weeks I felt useless and out of it, I’ve never been in a job before where I didn’t feel I was great at it. But there’s more to this than being able to talk your way out of trouble. It was brilliant having a job where there were issues for me and where I didn’t get it straight away.  I hate losing at anything and I don’t like being bad at things.

‘For the future I’ve got meetings with the web designers for Stulet.com and potential meetings with landlords. I’m aiming to get 30 landlords on the site and want it to become the most efficient way to let and rent student accommodation. Also I want my The KnowHow tourist magazine to expand. At the moment it is for west Dorset and I’d like it to grow from there to cover Cornwall.’

ENTRANTS

AMY GACKOWSKA

LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY

Amy runs dance classes for children and for OAPs. She is also a successful party planner, frequently journeying from Liverpool to London for meetings and workshops, and selling to customers in their own homes. 

‘I started the dancing because I’ve been dancing since I was a child, and it started more as a way to have fun rather than make money.  My teacher asked me to help with the younger students to get a bit of money and I said yes. I’d never considered if I wanted a career working with children. Would I be able to handle them? I soon realised what fun they are. I really wanted to work on building up my confidence.

‘Over the last year, since I’ve started my own e-ventures, I don’t have a boss to hide behind and I’m having to set things up myself.  It’s really boosted my confidence and I’m looking to set up more dance classes over the next couple of years. I’d never done anything like the ERAC internship and I was looking to boost my skills in other areas such as sales which I’d never done. I realise it is quite tough getting a graduate job out there and it was great learning new skills and finding out what I actually like to do.

‘Now I have a potential offer of work in Germany.  But as I’ve realised there is so much I enjoy doing, deciding where my future career lies is going to be hard. I’m now a registered self-employed dance teacher so I can freelance and earn some money during my last year at university. Now I want a job where I can meet interesting people and a job where I can travel.’

ANDRE CAMPBELL

KINGSTON UNIVERSITY

Andre was the President of Kingston Entrepreneurs Society, managing a team of 10 while promoting an enterprising culture to over 650 students. He was also President of Kingston SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) and was instrumental in guiding the team to winning the National Award 'Spirit of Enterprise Award'. Andre started up Enfuse Youth, an education consultancy helping young people to fulfill their potential, and is also an advisor for the Oxfam UK Youth Board. 

 ‘Entrepreneurship is my passion. I can actually make an income from it and support myself. If you find something you love you’ll never ‘work’ another day of your life and I truly feel I’m doing something worthwhile. Now I have set up Isearch4aproperty.com with a colleague, an online property portal launched in Dubai and in the United Arab Emirates. What we have found is our investors in Dubai would also like to invest in London as well, and by 2012 I would like Isearch4aproperty.com to have gone UK-wide. I would also love for Enfuse Youth to have gone UK-wide and will be looking at franchising that out and influencing government policy.’

 
WILL RIORDAN

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

In the autumn of 2007, Will started UniMaid, Ltd., a services company offering overnight Laundry, Dry Cleaning, and Maid Services for students in London.  He was a winner of the LSE's Pitch It! entrepreneurship competition for 2008, and successfully pitched the business to the CEO of Corozan Capital Management, receiving over £10,000 in seed capital.  Now Will has negotiated a contract with multi-national commercial real estate firm, Sanctuary Management Services, to provide the UniMaid services at over 5,000 beds across London.  He is also starting up WeekendOut, a service aimed at European weekenders who wish to know the best places to visit when in a city for a brief time. 

‘I am currently working for an emerging markets fund and am living between the US and the UK.  UniMaid is still running, although on a lower level, as I try to find a suitable replacement candidate.

‘I thought that the Real World Awards were a good mix of excitement and entertainment, and I felt privileged to have given a presentation in front of such an extensive panel of established businessmen and women.  I know that the competition helped put some of my ideas in perspective, and the judges’ comments gave me insight on my future.’

SYED AHMAD

UNIVERSITY OF WALES, SWANSEA

After spending his gap year in Gambia, Syed set up a company helping Gambian farmers with their cold storage problems, where food stocks were going bad before they could get them to market. Thus, the Desert Fridge Project was born. The fridge (basically a ceramic pot within a ceramic pot with the cavity between the two filled with wet sand) increases the ‘storage life’ of tomatoes from three days to two weeks in the Gambian sun. The project has benefited both Gambian pot-makers and farmers. Both SIFE and Humanity First have backed Syed.

‘The end product of any social enterprise is to help people, but in order to do that sustainably the project has to be successful and financially viable. What I want to get involved in is sustainable engineering projects for developing countries, from the concept up, so they don’t get left on the drawing board. Following Gambia now Ivory Coast, Benin and Mali are also getting involved. Most of the projects I am working on are Africa based and there is still so much more to do out there.’

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