Students take part in high street challenge
Wednesday 16 November 2011
As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, students from the universities of Winchester, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth and Southampton Solent will be looking at ways of using social enterprise concepts to breathe the life back into our high streets.
Hampshire Chamber of Commerce who are the voice of business across the county and Hammerson -a company managing some of the most exciting retail destinations including WestQuay in Southampton -are proud to be lead sponsors for the day.
Jimmy Chestnutt, Chief Executive of Hampshire Chamber of Commerce says:“We are keen to work with the Universities to provide students with opportunities to find creative business solutions to real social and economic issues in the community. This is fundamental to developing their skills and assisting the region’s future economy in line with the ‘Future Southampton city centre vision’ which includes retail space redevelopment.”
Richard Blackwell, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Southampton Solent University says: “The University is proud to host the Dynamo Enterprise challenge for 2011. Enterprise and graduate employment are at the heart of the Solent vision”
This year’s Dynamo Enterprise Challenge – an annual inter university enterprise competition - will be hosted in the SoCo Creative Hub, a successfully converted retail unit in the Bargate Shopping Centre in Southampton.
On Friday 18 November, the students will be split into teams and sent off to find creative solutions to what has become a major high street problem.
The students will be advised and judged by a panel of entrepreneurial experts including Dan Thompson, founder of The Empty Shops Network and Edwin Broni-Mensah a multiple award winning social entrepreneur and founder of Give me Tap.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT THE MEDIA OFFICE ON 023 8031 9040
Dynamo Challenge is an annual inter University student enterprise challenge which has been running since 2006. The event has won a ‘High Impact Award’ in Global Entrepreneurship Week in 2009, 2010 and 2011
Global Entrepreneurship Week takes place from the 14- 20 November.
Hampshire Business Alliance is a new organisation where three major business organisations are joining forces to refocus business support in Hampshire. In a ‘one stop’ approach, the Hampshire Business Alliance will remove confusion about business back-up and consolidate the activity of the three bodies to provide the most cohesive and cost-effective structure possible. http://www.hampshirebusinessalliance.com/|
Hammerson is a FTSE 100 company which has been creating and managing some of the most exciting retail destinations and office buildings in Europe for over 50 years. Hammerson have a real estate portfolio in the UK and France of around £5.8 billion. http://www.hammerson.com| For WestQuay: www.west-quay.co.uk|
SoCo creative hub is a successful not for profit initiative providing workshops, performances, facilities and equipment for artists, musicians film makers, thespians and other creative industries. http://www.socomusicproject.org.uk/about/page3.html| )
Dan Thompson is the founder of the Empty Shops Network and has 10 years experience of reinvigorating empty shop space around the country http://www.artistsandmakers.com/staticpages/index.php/emptyshops|
Edwin Broni-Mensah is a young entrepreneur and founder of Give me Tap a successful social enterprise http://www.givemetap.co.uk/|