Case study: Last year's Enterprise winners
Young Melton entrepreneurs cook up winning business plan for national phone challenge
Students from the South Hunsley School and Sixth Form College in Melton were treated to a private performance by a chart-topping music artist in November 2010, after beating national competition to take first place in the 2010 PhoneBrain Enterprise Competition. Their idea for a new premium rate phone service - to help students living away from home for the first time cook and plan meals - saw them triumph over secondary schools across England and Wales.
The group of 12 year olds, Niall Ubhi, Poppy English, Jonathan Foley and Lucy Sayer, led by their teacher, Sarah Barley, submitted their idea for the iCook service. iCook would allow mobile users to download an application to link their mobile to a cooking device, such as an oven. The service would then instruct the oven to set the temperature and timer for the chosen meal - and a text message would be sent to the mobile once the meal was cooked. The application would also offer users the option of downloading cookbooks and recipes, including videos that would give users step-by-step tutorials.
As part of their prize, the winners welcomed Fugative, 16-year-old independent music artist, producer and publisher, to the South Hunsley School. Fugative performed for a group of students, met the winners and answered questions about his experience in the music industry.
Barry Gray, Area Leader for Enterprise and ICT said:
Our innovative curriculum has a particular emphasis on Enterprise and the development of business ideas, and we saw the PhoneBrain competition as the ideal compliment to the learning taking place here at the school.
The competition has made students more aware of the growing market for mobile phone applications and the entrepreneurial opportunities that this growth is creating. Just as valuable though have been the discussions that students have had on e-safety and the potential costs of participating in premium rate phone services. We are delighted that our students' efforts have ultimately led to this success and are very much looking forward to welcoming Fugative to South Hunsley.
PhonepayPlus' Chief Executive, Paul Whiteing, said:
I would like to congratulate the group from the South Hunsley School on their win. We saw a lot of great submissions for this year's PhoneBrain Enterprise Competition, but the iCook service won our judges over - it's a great example of a unique, targeted business plan. We hope that all of the schools that participated in this year's PhoneBrain programme enjoyed the experience, and we are confident that more young people now have a better understanding of how premium rate services work, so that they can use them with confidence.