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The University of Reading's Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team really produced the goods in their first year, picking up three awards, to announce themselves on the SIFE stage.
Only formed in October 2007, SIFE Reading won a prize for reaching the last four at the UK SIFE national finals in London and a prize for coming runners up in their league. Reading did exceptionally well as most of the 16 teams competing had at least a year's experience behind them.
SIFE is a not for profit organisation run in 1800 universities in 47 countries. SIFE students form teams that serve their communities by developing projects that take what they are learning in their classrooms and use it to solve real world problems for real people. Business executives support the programme through corporate donations, personal contributions and the gift of their time.
The competition was judged by representatives from companies who sponsor SIFE and managing directors who are associated with the scheme. Businesses sponsor SIFE to become aware of their corporate social responsibility, and also to meet the budding entrepreneurial students who could be their next employees.
At the finals the Reading team, consisting of 12 3rd year students, were judged on their presentation skills, how the team performed over the past year and the projects they conceived, which showcased their entrepreneurial skills and how those skills were fed down to develop enterprise in the community.
One of these projects involved teaching sixth formers from two local schools, Forest Boys and Reading Girls, about Entrepreneurship and Business start-up. The Reading SIFE team led the schools' sixth form pupils, who then returned to their own schools and promoted the programme to year nine students.
The year nines then attended workshops, coming up with their own business plans and exhibited these on 1 May at a 'Dragon Factor' competition, set up by the Reading SIFE team. Claire Blood, team leader of the Dragon Factor, won a special award for Future Foundations Student Leader at the UK SIFE national finals.
Penny Bradshaw, Business & Community Manager at Forest School said: "The boys benefited greatly from working with students from both the University of Reading and Reading Girls School, learning how to face challenges head on and solve problems as they arrive.
"They enjoyed working with the SIFE team, who opened their eyes to some of the opportunities available to students, whilst discovering that mentoring, whilst rewarding, can be very hard work and involves a great deal of patience. We will certainly be looking at other opportunities to work with both institutions in the future."
For more information about SIFE at the University of Reading please contact Hazel Watts, Enterprise Officer at the University of Reading, tel. 0118 378 7461 or email h.e.watts@reading.ac.uk |
