Local Entrepreneur Inspires Future Business Leaders

Published: July 9, 2013

Last week, Webanywhere’s Managing Director, Sean Gilligan, shared his story and experiences with Year 9 students at Holy Family Catholic School, Bradford, for their Enterprise Day. Sean inspired the school by explaining how starting up your own business can be an exciting and rewarding career choice for school leavers.

After his presentation Sean set an Apprentice style task, where pupils were split into groups of eight. Each group had to pick a name for themselves and assign a Project Manager, who then led their team in completing the task, which was to identify a problem in the school and solve it.

After a brainstorming session, each team presented to the rest of the Year 9 students and teachers, with innovative and inspired ideas. These included a salad bar for the school and a student support service. The teachers then scored them out of ten in the style of the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel.

The winning idea was thought up by the group ‘8 Minds’. They came up with the idea of having an ‘Electro-card’, a swipe card that could be used to pay for things in school, for example dinners or trips. This card could then be topped up by parents, avoiding the need for cash in school.

The teams who presented the top three ideas were all given Webanywhere goodie bags.

Sean Gilligan said: “Enterprise Day was a great exercise for Year 9 students to generate creative business ideas. Starting your own company can be within anyone’s grasp ­ and I hope some of these young people at Holy Family Catholic School will be business leaders for Bradford and West Yorkshire in years to come.”

For more information about what Webanywhere do for schools, or to learn more about our work with the community, email me at lucy.smith@webanywhere.co.uk.