The girls took away some valuable lessons from the challenges they faced. Getting their heads around loans, profits and market research proved tricky, but the girls worked together to overcome these challenges. They remarked that they learnt a lot at Launch Pad, particularly how to compromise, resolve conflict, and to “divide and conquer” their tasks.

As well as creating a business, complete with marketing strategy, financial plan and staff management, the girls then had to make an ‘elevator pitch’; a 2 minute presentation about their business. From this it was clear how hard UIV had worked; no detail was spared. The girls spoke about harnessing the power of influencers and public figures on social media, they emphasised the social and environmental impacts they wanted to have, and they didn’t skip on the boring bits – one company even had a staff code of conduct!

Judging took place at the end of the day, and was a very tough decision. The Prize for Marketing went to Pop-Up Parties for their powerful adverts. The Innovation Award went to Eco, for their emphasis on sustainability. Esprit were awarded the Teamwork Prize, and Life Cycle snapped up the prize for their engaging Elevator Pitch. Snapshot took the overall prize for their photography business.

Thank you to the incredible volunteers who supported our UIV students in developing new skills and learning more about the world of business and, importantly, themselves.