Could NEWI be home to the next Richard Branson or Alan Sugar?

4 December 2006

A group of NEWI students have been showing off their entrepreneurial flair in E-Factor an enterprise competition in the style of the BBC’s Dragon’s Den and Sky’s The Big Idea. The event was the brainchild of a group of business students who have a keen interest in enterprise and developing their entrepreneurial skills.  E-Factor was open to all students, all they needed to enter was a sound business idea and the guts to present it in front of a panel of judges and an audience!  

The judging panel was made up of our own dragons all with strong entrepreneurial skills and sound business backgrounds so they knew exactly what they were looking for.  The judges included one man who has plenty experience of this sort of thing, local entrepreneur and star of the BBC show Dragon’s Den, Steve Bellis.  Steve Bellis appeared on Dragon’s Den in September asking for investment in his business ‘Nuts Poker League’; unlike many contestants who come away empty handed Steve walked away from the show with a bigger investment than he initially asked for!  Along with Steve Bellis judging the business ideas were Mark Roberts, Managing Director of Gap Personnel, David Green, local entrepreneur who runs Xuberance an event management company and lecturers from the Wrexham Business School, Sandra King and Ben Binsardi. 

Six students presented their ideas on the night and the £200 prize money, which was donated by Go Wales, was won by Landry Awono for his business idea Protexx Engineering.  His company will aim to bring affordable technology solutions to educational establishments and businesses in Africa and other developing countries.  Other ideas pitched on the night included specially designed sport socks and a business travel service offering business people light aircraft flights to get them from A to B.

Landry has invested the prize money into his business; “it was great to win” he said “the competition provided a good opportunity to get feedback on my plans. I am carrying on the business and hope to officially launch it at the end of January. This win has provided me with a great boost and has made me even more determined for my business to succeed.”