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Dragons Den comes to County Durham

DUNCAN Bannatyne may not have been in the house, but the region’s youth last week gave the North East business community 5 very good reasons why its future should be placed in their hands at an exclusive Dragon’s Den-style event.

Now in its fourth year, The Big Ideas Youth Challenge final saw five teams of budding business hopefuls pitch their bright ideas in front of a packed crowd of proud parents and international business experts at the Beamish Hall Hotel in County Durham.

Speaking at the event, Bernie Callaghan, CEO at Sunderland Software City said he was inspired by the presentations and has every confidence a new generation of entrepreneurs will drive the North East’s software sector to the forefront of global business.

He said: “We want to develop a software industry in the region and this will only succeed with a good supply chain. The entrepreneurial skills and technological knowledge the young people have picked up on this programme is fantastic.

“They are being exposed to leading people in business and large organisations like Microsoft and BT.

“We need to raise aspiration levels in the region and initiatives like this help to do that. Anything is possible with hard work and effort and these young people have blown us away with their ideas.”

Leander Gillard, CEO of Canadian computer firm Gillard Ebusiness Science, said the Big Ideas programme will bring great long term benefits to the North East and should be rolled out on a international scale.

He added: “I’m a firm believer in what’s been done here. Getting the young in the region ready for a career in software innovation will bring huge benefits to the area.

“We don’t have anything like this in Canada and I would love to see this happen across the world. An international competition would be fantastic and it would be great if it was hosted here in the North East.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .