Could you be the next Ben & Jerry’s?

Are you a young, socially responsible entrepreneur who is creating a new model for sustainable business that will help make a difference in communities? If so, you might have a chance to win a €10,000 cash prize, mentoring from Ashoka and the chance to see your name on a tub of the popular ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s.

This is an incredible opportunity for entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 34 with a passion for sustainability and changing the way business is done in Europe. Successful entrants will get the chance to pitch their business idea to a panel of industry leaders – including Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield, and representatives from Ashoka, VSO and the Fairtrade Foundation.

The first 100 applicants entering by 15 March 2012, will all scoop the equivalent of a year supply of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The final deadline for submitting competition entries is 15 April 2012. 25 entrepreneurial semi-finalists will be invited to present their ideas to the judging panel in London. The 15 finalists chosen by the panel will be whisked off to Uganda for the last stage of the program with development gurus VSO, where they will share social business ideas, live with vanilla farmers and help local development projects in their community. The five overall winners will win a €10,000 cash prize and will be featured on a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream tub. There will also be a ‘People’s Choice Award’, where the Join Our Core community will pick five winners who will each receive €1,000 in cash.

For further information about the Join Our Core competition, full details on how to enter and the prizes on offer please visit www.joinourcore.com.

Employment Opportunity: Sooqini CEO

Sooqini CEO, London Metropolitan University

The fantastic new mobile market start-up, Sooqini are looking for a student entrepreneur to successfully establish their mobile market place in London Met University. Use your spare time to exercise your entrepreneurial abilities to build and grow London Met Sooqini-using buyers and sellers.

For a full job description, please click here.

To apply, please email Alessandro Adamo, a.adamo@lmentrepreneurs.com.

Employment Opportunity: BE YOUR OWN BOSS, Event & Party Promoting in Ibiza

BE YOUR OWN BOSS, Event & Party Promoting in Ibiza, Summer 2012

Experience a one of a kind opportunity promoting parties and events in the party center of the world.  If you are self-driven and would like to take advantage of the opportunity to meet and engage with the vast number of people that are attracted to Ibiza every summer, then this might be the job for you.

Applicants are required to have an outgoing personality and strong entrepreneurial attitude with effective skills in marketing, communications and sales.

For future details, please email Alessandro Adamo, a.adamo@lmentrepreneurs.com.

Have a fantastic week from the LME team!

The competition is open to all students from London Met. Entrants are provided with a programme of support and training from entrepreneurs and industry experts. The process will develop your business skills, extend your entrepreneurial knowledge, whilst helping you to create a commercially viable business plan. The Business Plan Competition has a two step process. First enter a business concept of no more than 1000 words. Then six finalists will be chosen and given support to test their idea and to write a full business plan and pitch their idea to a panel of entrepreneurs. The deadline for the business concept submission is Sunday 15th January 2012.For full rules and how to apply visit the following pages:

How to submit a business concept:

If you are serious about submitting your ideas or just want to look through the fine print, read through the following sections.

Rules

1. Eligibility

2. Deadlines

3. Submission Requirements

3.1 Business Concept Submission

3.2 Business Plan Submission

4. Presentations

5. Assessment Criteria

6. Judges

Prizes

• 1st Prize £2500 cash and £2500 in kind support from the Accelerator Business Incubator
• 2nd Prize £1000 cash and £1000 in kind support from the Accelerator Business Incubator
• 3rd Prize £500 cash and one year virtual incubation at the Accelerator Business Incubator
• 4th Prize £250 cash and one year virtual incubation at the Accelerator Business Incubator
• 5th Prize £100 cash and one year virtual incubation at the Accelerator Business Incubator

Schedule

Resources

Business Concept Assessment

Feasibility Plan Framework

Writing a Successful Business Plan

Business Concept Submission Requirements (What to submit at Stage 1)

Official Sponsor of the Business Plan Competition 2011/2012:

]]> http://www.lmentrepreneurs.com/2012/01/12/5000-top-prize-for-the-business-plan-competition-201112/feed/ 0 http://www.lmentrepreneurs.com/2012/01/12/1366/ http://www.lmentrepreneurs.com/2012/01/12/1366/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:47:01 +0000 admin http://lmentrepreneurs.com/?p=1366 The event, held at the London Metropolitan University Moorgate building, inspired and motivated attendees. The lecture hall was bursting with over two hundred spectators eager to absorb Mr Johnson’s experience; highlighting the ups and downs of his career and what has made him the incredibly successful entrepreneur he is today.

Who is Look Johnson?

Luke Johnson is the Chairman of Risk Capital Partners, a private equity firm he founded in 2001. For six years until 2010 he served as Chairman of Channel 4 Television, a major British broadcaster.

He is Chairman/part owner of the restaurant business Giraffe with 40 branches, and Chairman/owner of Patisserie Valerie, Druckers and Baker & Spice, three chains of over 70 retail patisseries. He recently took control of Bread Ltd, Britain’s largest artisan baker, including the retail bakery Gail’s. He became Chairman and part-owner of 3Sixty Restaurants which runs the Rocket and Ego brands, and also owns Feng Sushi and Chairs Draft House.

As Chairman and majority shareholder of Signature Restaurants he built up the Strada 75 branch restaurant chain and owned various classic London restaurants including The Ivy, Le Caprice and J Sheekey.

Previously he was Chairman of PizzaExpress PLC. During his involvement the share price rose from 40p to over 800p. In the 1980s he worked as a stockbroking analyst for Kleinworts. He co-founded the largest UK chain of dental surgeries, Integrated Dental Holdings, which was sold for over £100m after ten years of ownership.

He wrote a business column in The Sunday Telegraph between 1998 and 2006, and now writes a weekly essay in The Financial Times. In 2009 he became the Chairman of The Royal Society of Arts.

He graduated in medicine from Magdalen College, Oxford University.

Luke Johnson launches “Start it Up”

This book is aimed at anyone who has ever thought about starting or buying a business. It is for one-man bands, as well as those who are running big companies. It is for all the dreamers who want to control their own destiny and make some money – perhaps a lot – while they’re at it

This is not a comprehensive manual, like a school textbook. It has practical advice, but what I really want the book to do is to inspire you to go out and create a new enterprise. The possibilities are endless. Whenever I meet someone who runs their own company, or read the biography of an entrepreneur, I am fascinated by the haphazard way in which they ended up being their own boss. The journey is rarely planned: it is not a career with a structure and sets of qualifications, like medicine or architecture.

Rather, entrepreneurs create their own career path by providing something new that customers will buy – at a profit. Sometimes that product or service is genuinely innovative – but often it is a conventional offering yet delivered better, cheaper or in a different place.

Some are happy to be simple freelancers and avoid the burden of employing staff. Others are more ambitious and want to build a major concern. Whoever they are, the journey they have chosen is unlikely to be the easy path – but for many it will offer much more excitement and satisfaction than the drudgery of working for others.

I think entrepreneurs are the unsung heroes of our time. They generate the jobs and taxes that keep our society civilized. They risk going broke, or maybe just working one hundred hours a week and earning very little. They battle through recessions, regulation and competition to satisfy our wants. I salute their efforts, ingenuity and commitment. This book is dedicated to them: because without dynamism and bold thinking, we would all be immeasurably poorer. I hope one or two of these chapters help motivate and provide a little guidance to the warrior entrepreneurs of our time.

Julie Meyer, one of the leading champions for entrepreneurship in Europe, hosts this year’s London Met Student Business Plan Competition Awards Ceremony.

With over 20 years investment and advisory experience helping start-up businesses, Julie is the well known founder & CEO of Ariadne Capital, Managing Partner of the Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs (ACE) Fund, founder of Entrepreneur Country, co-founder of First Tuesday, dragon on BBC’s Online Dragons Den and weekly columnist in London’s City AM.

Julie will be starting off the Awards Ceremony with a keynote speech detailing her rise to success and the importance of entrepreneurship in today’s society.

Julie will then announce the winner’s of the 2010/11 London Met Student Business Plan Competition.

Come hear from on of the UK’s leading Women Entrepreneurs and see the Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow. Followed by networking drinks and complimentary buffet.

Book your tickets now at http://londonmetbusinessplanawards.eventbrite.com/

Who are i-Negotiate?
This workshop will be run by Founder and CEO of i-Negotiate, Philip Blanc, a Frenchman and expert negotiator who has been living in the UK since 1988.

He started as a trainee produce buyer and worked his way up the ladder to become Commercial Director on the UK & Ireland Board of Anheuser Busch !nBev, the leading global brewer and one of the world’s top 5 consumer products companies. 



A true consumer-centric, sales driven leader, Blanc is a recognised authority on the psychology of negotiations, leadership and team performance.

He has directly impacted the lives of thousands of people with his book L’Équilibriste (co-written with Eric Hubler), workshops, public speaking engagements and negotiation / conflict resolution assignments.

In 2008, he founded i-negotiate®, the global negotiation consultancy developing people into world-class negotiators. The company offers a wide range of negotiation support services. 



Philip Blanc represents the interests of both major corporate clients and individuals in a broad spectrum of industrial and service sectors. He also conducts numerous executive programmes in both English and French throughout the world.

As a Negotiator and a Karateka, managing balance is his constant challenge! His motto: in negotiation as in life, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the response!

Richard joins us at London Metropolitan University to talk about how he grew his small idea into one of the major brands of today.

To book on this event go to http://richardreed-eorg.eventbrite.com/

Mike built and sold his company in the 80s and worked on seventeen different start-ups in the 90s (two later went public, three went broke!). He is now the UK’s leading entrepreneur mentor and regularly features on the BBC as well as writing a column in the Financial Times. He is co-author of several best-selling business books, including The Beermat Entrepreneur and Sales on a Beermat.

Mike Joins us at London Metropolitan University to talk on his Something About the Beatles topic, which uses the most famous band to example the ways everyone can be creative and entrepreneurial.

To book on this event please go to http://mikesouthonlondonmet.eventbrite.com