By Kostas Mavroulakis, Student Enterprise Coordinator, Warwick Business School Enterprise Hub & Former WE President

Student Entrepreneurship at Warwick

Over the past decade there has been a rise in student entrepreneurship encouraged by cult television shows like BBC’s ‘Dragons Den’ and a new generation of Internet entrepreneurs like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

At Warwick, students have been taking the steps to be their own boss. Warwick has always had a strong reputation for being an entrepreneurial university and was recently described by former Prime Minister Tony Blair as “a beacon among British Universities for its dynamism, quality and entrepreneur zeal”. This entrepreneurial spirit is being encouraged to students through the Warwick Entrepreneurs Society which provides the ideal place for students to meet like-minded people and develop entrepreneurial skills relevant for starting a business or working in a large organisation.

Warwick Entrepreneurs

The student society supports students through its platform of regular workshops, inspiring speaker events like the annual Young Entrepreneurs Forum and challenging competitions, like its own Dragon’s Den style competition known as Be Your Own Boss. In November 2008, the competition was won by three students for their E-Resistible.co.uk business, an online takeaway web site for independent restaurants. The business was featured in The Independent.

The society is supported by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Accenture and the Warwick Business School Enterprise Hub. Other businesses by members include TheUniExpress.com and MyOnePage.com, a real-time contact card for organising all your social media streams on one page.

Global Enterprise Week

In 2009, Warwick Entrepreneurs will be running Global Entrepreneurship Week at Warwick (November 16^th-21^st 2009). The purpose of the week is to not only inspire and educate students in becoming successful entrepreneurs but to challenge them to be innovative, generate new ideas and work together. It will engage the wider community at Warwick though themed days including Entrepreneurship Day, Cultural Enterprise Day, Women’s Enterprise Day, Social Enterprise Day and Internet Enterprise Day. An Apprentice style competition will be running in partnership with Oriflame Cosmetics UK which will challenge students to work together to compete in marketing, sales and recruitment challenges. This will give them the opportunity to experience the buzz of making some money themselves by being entrepreneurial and also donating a percentage of their team's profits to The Princes Trust West Midlands. The Young Entrepreneurs Forum will be run 21^st November 2009 and the Be Your Own Boss competition in early 2010.

Working with Warwick students

If you are interested in working with Warwick Entrepreneurs visit www.warwickentrepreneurs.com to see what our members say and view the projects and programmes.

Students interested in joining the society can do so free of charge.