First ever Young Apprentice winner
Published Wednesday, 19 September 2012
The winner of the council's first ever Young Apprentice contest, loosely based on the TV series, has been announced.
Zoe Wilson, of Stonelaw High School, won an iPad after coming out on top following two weeks of challenges based on business growth and entrepreneurism.
The fortnight began with the participants meeting up and splitting into teams before finding out how the two weeks would unfold with the highlights of each challenge filmed and can now been seen on our YouTube page.
A teambuilding exercise organised by Hamilton Outdoor Resource Base kicked off the series of challenges, before three days were spent at Coca-Cola Enterprises Education Centre in East Kilbride.
A two day design challenge was led by Education Centre Manager at Coca-Cola, Joanne Gabbay. This was followed by an ideas workshop led by Mike Kearns of UXL Ltd.
Pupils taking part in the Young Apprentice also visited three local small businesses, Micro Fitness in Cumbernauld, Harleys Bistro in Lanark and Top to Tail in Blantyre. This allowed the candidates to visit young people who had created a successful business from scratch.
Outdoor resilience training was then conducted by Hamilton Outdoor Resource Base before the candidates spent the last three days of the challenge at Council Headquarters in Hamilton.
The first two days consisted of entrepreneurial challenges led by Mike Kearns which included creating a business idea, tools to use and creating a pitch.
The final day allowed teams to present their ideas to a panel of business judges, with the overall winner the person who scored the most points across each of the challenges.
Overall winner Zoe said: "I'm so happy to have won, I really didn't see it coming.
"I have really enjoyed these two weeks, it has probably been the best two weeks of my summer, meeting new people and gaining new skills - it has just been fantastic."
Although delighted to pick up an iPad Zoe was adamant that wasn't her main reason for taking part.
She said: "I never entered this knowing there was a prize, I just thought it would be great for gaining skills.
"When I did win I was absolutely overwhelmed because I have really, really enjoyed my time and I hope the people I have enjoyed working with have enjoyed working with me as well."
The pupils who participated in the Young Apprentice challenge were:
- Lynsay Gebbie from Hamilton Grammar
- Jack Thomson, Naomi
Wadsworth and Rhiannan Sommerville from Holy Cross High
- Robert Thorpe from Larkhall Academy
- Sophie Law and Catriona McCabe from St Andrews and St Bride's High
- Cameron Falder from Strathaven Academy
- Zoe Wilson from Stonelaw High
- Nicola McFadden, Haider Ahmed and Lewis Gardner from Cathkin High
- Lauren Doherty,
Kevin Maguire, Eilidh McEwan and Shannon Corrigan from Trinity High
South Lanarkshire's Provost Eileen Logan, said: "Congratulations to Zoe and all of the young people who took part in this challenge.
"I was extremely impressed with the talent and business acumen they showed and I hope they have really learned something during the two weeks.
"I know all of them worked extremely hard and the ideas and products they came up with were absolutely first class.
"Hopefully this taste of the business world has given them the appetite to go on and emulate the Lord Sugars of this world!"
And Education Centre Manager at Coca-Cola, Joanne Gabbay, said: "The experience of mentoring the Young Apprentices challenge has brought the importance of what the Education Centre here at CCE does to support students to develop life skills, confidence, and communication and collaboration skills.
"All the students that took part were wonderful and treated the challenge like a real-life scenario. They also had tremendous fun using their creativity. They were very professional and showed outstanding team work."
