Highlands and Islands Enterprise - The ICT Youth Challenge - video transcript

We're looking to find information and communication technology businesses of the future, big ideas, innovations, inspirations, brainwaves, business millionaires. These are the thoughts behind youth challenge. You, with a team, create the ideas and then develop them through the four stages of the challenge and then who knows what could happen. However, you have to start at the beginning.  So, how to play. Its all about teams. Your team must have a minimum of three members and a maximum of five. They can be your friends, your school, your college classmates, your family, a youth or community club or any other groups in the Highlands and Islands. Teamwork is the key. Even the very best business ideas need strong well balanced teams behind them if they are going to make it in the real world. So you are looking for the kind of people that combine innovative thinking with a willingness to collaborate with others, to bring business ideas to full realisation. Simple!  

Stage 1 - Your Seed Idea. First your team will need to submit it's seed idea on an entry form. See www.youth-challenge.co.uk for more details then your team will be issued with a unique identification number and in early January you will be told by email if your team has been selected to make that first pitch.

Stage 2 - The First Pitch. Around twenty five teams will be invited to pitch their ideas in late January by video conferencing to an audience of ICT experts - the judges. This is a first opportunity to sell your idea, a chance to make the moment count, bringing your idea to life in the minds eye of the judges. Again, you will be informed by email if your team has been selected to make the forum 

Stage 3 - The Forum. Things are getting hot. A total of twelve teams will then be invited to attend the forum in early March. Successful teams from the first pitch will have impressed the judging panel with their projects which should show teamwork, innovation, market potential, methods of collaboration and presentation skills. At the forum six teams will be selected to attend the Hot House, again you will be informed by email if your team has been selected to make the final.

Stage 4 - The Hot House. The Hot House will consist of a residential programme focussed on bringing the ideas with the most potential to full realisation and will be held towards the end of June. Teams will get business, technical and administrative support to turn their idea into a working prototype. Finally, one team will be chosen as the ICT Youth Challenge winner. The remaining teams will receive individual prizes and possibly ongoing support to take their business ideas to market. So, no losers at the Hot House. Get thinking.

Tips for Success. Its important to note that mentors and adults play a very important role in helping and guiding the teams to co-ordinate, present and consolidate their ideas and projects. So make sure you have good mentors around your team. Being well prepared and having as much work done for the three presentation stages is a must for success. Really innovative ideas will also make the difference between success and failure. Work hard because the team next door is working very hard. Act responsibly. The competition is no joke. Also collaborate with everyone and it will pay dividends as they say in business. You will have amazing fun. For the complete list of rules visit www.youth-challenge.co.uk.

As the originator and main sponsor of Youth Challenge, Highlands and Islands Enterprise or HIE as its known is responsible for many business, community and regional development initiatives. Included in this is a commitment to the youth of the area. Calum Davidson of HIE explains ...

"As a region we lose our 18-30 year olds. Our area is growing and we need something to get kids excited. Because we are working with MIT in Boston, one of the world's top technology universities we thought lets to a little bit of what they do in the world's top university here in the Highlands. It's quite simple, they've got confidence, enormous confidence in themselves and what they can do as teamwork and they've also got ambition. These kids have suddenly learnt that their ideas can actually take them somewhere and we have seen some really quite interesting examples of young kids, instead of going off to uni in some cases starting their own businesses. Other ones have taken the business ideas and said lets go for it entering european and world competitions ... and winning them. They've just been amazed at the quality and confidence of the young people, particularly their ideas and the way they actually work as teams and the way they have learnt and grown and secondly, the technologists amongst them have thought these are some really good ideas. I've seen guys from BT and from Media Lab go back and start writing down ideas and exploring them back in their labs. So they are really getting an awful lot out of it. Corporate sponsorship is actually vital. Really for two reasons. One, we need to let the kids realise this isn't just something that happens within their region and within their development agency and within their school. Its about being part of something in a much wider world so we need big corporates to be involved in this. But secondly, what the corporates are getting is quite important, they're getting serious exposure with some of the brightest and most ambitious kids in the Highlands and Islands and if this extends to other parts of the UK that whole niche of young bright, focussed kids we're looking at science and technology. We've been running it for three years now and its actually been incredibly successful. We've just done a formal evaluation which has said there is no other programme like this in the whole of the UK and it really should be extended. So what we are looking to do is embed this in the Highlands and Islands but really try and roll out to other parts of Scotland the UK and say, okay anybody else interested in coming along and having your own regional competition and then lets have one major final, here in the Highlands and Islands and we've got a lot of interest from TV, film production companies and following that process over the next few years. Yeah, its been a major contributing factor to our new strategy which is focussing on growth, growth in the knowledge economy, growth in science and technology, and a very very strong focus on youth - the 18 to 30 year olds, the 15-25 year olds and making sure that they have a clear picture of what they fit in the future of the Highlands and Islands, and Scotland and the UK. The kids who have been involved have been very excited and very stimulated by that and its made them realise that there is a future in them studying and working in the areas of information and communication technology, science and technology and its made them realise that. Secondly, its made them realise that they don't actually have to be in a big city to do these things. There are networks and infrastructures, research groups that you can actually ... if you go to uni you come back after four or five years and live and work in a pretty nice part of the UK and actually carry out cutting edge research, developing new products and conceptualising building ideas."

Youth Challenge is a significant and developing visual youth showcase enabling entrepreneurial drive amongst the young, letting them assess where they might fit in beyond the classroom or college. 

From a sponsorship point of view this is an ideal opportunity to support that entrepreneurial drive with a wide and growing field of corporate visibility including young people, the wider community, business in general and further education. Vindicating a commitment to youth and the future prosperity of the next generation through a creative business competition that's breaking new ground and setting new standards. Youth Challenge!