The Tribune

Aspiring Eleuthera entrepreneurs have been rewarded for their ideas after participating in the Centre for Training and Innovation’s “The Next Boss” competition.

Persons taking its Learn and Earn programme had to come up with a business idea and present it before their peers - and a pair of judges - during their entrepreneurship class. The top three innovations won prize money in the amounts of $500, $300 and $200, and the opportunity for further funding to develop their business ideas.

Denise Hinds-Jordan, entrepreneurship course lecturer and the competition’s founder, moderated the event and provided feedback alongside the judges to the students on their various innovations and how they could make them more feasible. She reminded the students that “an investment in your business is really an investment in you”.

The key points of the competition were for students to demonstrate what their idea was, how innovative it was, and what problem it would solve for themselves or the community. Students were tasked with showing the judges how the business idea could potentially generate income.

Serving as judges were Errol McPhee, who has significant experience in the area of entrepreneurship, including revising business plans and teaching business courses for many years, and Kenwood Cartwright, a member of local government for South Eleuthera.

“The students have some very good ideas that I really liked,” said Mr Cartwright. “Excellent ideas,” Mr McPhee added with a smile. Participating students researched what it would take to bring their ideas to fruition, presenting on concepts that interested them.

“It was a big eye opener for me,” said participant Dariana Michel. “I learned about ways to get people to buy and want your product or service.” While picking her idea for the competition was not a challenge, she admitted she was nervous about presenting it to the judges and audience. “To my surprise it captured their attention and I was very happy about that.”