A team from Peterhead Academy has emerged victorious from the Young Enterprise (YE) Grampian final.
The Blue Toon pupils, who named their business A Bag of Hope, worked with local charity Buchan Giving Tree to develop a bag of essentials for underprivileged families.
Eight teams in the final each pitched their enterprise to a panel of business leaders in front of an audience of more than 100 people at the Jurys Inn Aberdeen Airport hotel.
The Dragons’ Den-meets-The-Apprentice-style event was compered by Richard Cormack Corrigan, enterprise executive at Converge – Scotland’s largest company creation programme for the university sector.
We are constantly looking at ways in which we can ensure the programme is relevant to the way business works today and how we can light a fire within these young people to inspire them to become entrepreneurs.”
Ian Phillips, chairman, YE Grampian.
Pupils were judged on criteria including financial management, business acumen and marketing flair.
The final was the culmination of nine months of creating, setting up and running their small businesses.
The winning team now goes forward to represent Aberdeen city and shire at the YE Scotland national final in June.
YE Grampian chairman Ian Phillips said: “The Young Enterprise Grampian programme has bounced back after two years under Covid restrictions and it’s tremendous to see.
“We are constantly looking at ways in which we can ensure the programme is relevant to the way business works today and how we can light a fire within these young people to inspire them to become entrepreneurs.
“The results have been really impressive and I hope the winning team will go on to be crowned Scottish winners as they have it in them to do so.”
The other secondary schools competing this year were Aberdeen Grammar, Albyn, Hazlehead, Mearns and St Margaret’s. Some schools had more than one finalist team.
Pupils showcased their products before facing questions from a judging panel comprised of Elizabeth Gammie, head of Aberdeen Business School at Robert Gordon University (RGU), Shonagh Douglas, course leader of BA business management at RGU, Chris West, managing director, Optimus Engineering, Florence Stanton from YE sponsor Shell, and King Omeihe, head of business management at Aberdeen University’s business school.
YE Scotland, which is a registered charity, runs the annual programme delivering business experience for budding young entrepreneurs in S5 and S6.