If you are based in Cornwall and have a business idea that could be turned in to an award winning business then you could access £100,000 of cash and services by entering the Ignite Cornwall Business Plan Competition.
How to Enter
Vist the Ignite Cornwall Competition site to enter the competition and get more details.
Initial entries are open up until the 31st December 2009. Successful applicants will be invited to attend a Training day where experts will give advice on how to produce, potentially, an award-winning business plan. From this stage business plans must be submitted by 31 March 2010.
]]>The Funding Drive, Winter 2010 is Find Invest Grow’s first funding event. 10 budding entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch for investment to a panel of active investors (They call them FIGureheads!) who are looking to mentor and fund student or recent graduates’ start-up businesses.
As an added bonus, one compnay invited to pitch will get a £1000 grant to invest in their business.
How to Apply
Entries for this round need to be in by 18th January. You can enter and find out more about the FIG competition here.
20 – 30 potential seed companies will then be invited to a Workshop event on the 28th January and 10 will be invited to the Pitch to Investor event on the 8th February.
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It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week! There are loads of events and competitions going on this week. You can check out the whole thing over at the main site .
The The Make Your Mark Challenge 2009 was also launched today aiming to “Let local inspiration lead you to a ‘cool’ creation”. Over 70,000 students are working on the Challenge today, making it the UK’s biggest one day enterprise challenge! You can find out what they are up to here.
]]>The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship support social entrepreneurs whose work has the potential for large-scale influence on critical challenges of our time: tolerance and human rights, health, economic and social equity, peace and security, institutional responsibility, and environmental sustainability. These issues are at the heart of the foundation’s vision of empowering people to create a peaceful, prosperous, sustainable world. Within these issues, Skoll is particularly interested in applications from social entrepreneurs working in five critical sub-issue areas that they consider to threaten the survival of humanity – climate change, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, conflict in the Middle East and water scarcity.
The Skoll Awards provide later-stage, or mezzanine, funding. In most cases, the grant is provided for core supportto help organizations expand their programs and capacity to deliver long-term, sustainable equilibrium change. The Skoll Awards are not intended for new or early-stage programmes or initiatives. Programmes submitted for consideration should have a track record of no less than three years.
Deadline for Applying:
Applications are accepted and reviewed on a year-round basis, with successful applicants receiving initial funding installments shortly after decisions are made. The current deadline is February 17, 2010 with the internal review process for these applications taking a minimum of six months to be completed. Awards will be presented publicly at a ceremony at the Skoll World Forum, which occurs at the end of every March in Oxford, England.
How to Apply
You can find out more about the Skoll Awards here
]]>The awards give recognition to women in business throughout the Northwest and reward the huge contribution that they make to the regional economy.
The Awards, organised by the Northwest Women’s Enterprise Forum (NWWEF) celebrate the achievements of the women who are running some of the region’s most successful and innovative businesses and inspire more women to consider enterprise as a career.
The Awards take place on Friday 29 January 2010 at Ribby Hall, Lancashire. This year there are 5 awards categories including a specialist Creative & Digital sector award.
Deadline for entries is Friday 20th November 2009
How to Apply
]]>The Future 100 Winners are applicable to be provided with:
- Media and PR training
- Exclusive London networking events and opportunities
- Business coaching, training and professional mentoring support
The deadline for application is November 5th, 2009
How to Apply
To find out more and apply visit www.future100.co.uk or contact Quinn Simpson at quinn@stridingout.co.uk
]]>Entry is very straightforward. Tell them what you would do with the money! The competition is open to existing small businesses or those that are just drawing up a business plan.
You can enter the competition here. The entries will be judged by judged by a panel led by Prof. Ian Angell of the London School of Economics. The deadline is short – get your entries in by 31 October 2009.
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GeoVation is an open innovation network aimed at developing new ideas based on geography. The project is backed by the UK mapping agency Ordnance Survey.
Anyone can enter an idea into the GeoVation Ideas Challenge for the opportunity to win a day out at Ordnance Survey, but you also have a chance of getting your hands on the £21,000 development fund for your idea by entering the GeoVation Awards Programme. Both competitions are open from the 6 October 2009 until 4 January 2010.
You can enter an idea into the GeoVation Ideas Challenge here. To go for the development fund create a venture here and fill in the Awards Programme Submission form.
All the information is on the GeoVation site, here.
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- Home Business of the Year
- Home Business Couple of the Year
- Home Office of the Year
- Young Home Business Owner of the Year (under age of 35)
- The 5 to 9 Home Business (open to anyone holding a day job and building the business at nights and weekends)
Your entry will automatically put you in the running to win the title ‘Home Business of the Year’ but you can also tick a box to apply for any or all of the categories.
Prizes
It’s free to enter and winners will receive some amazing prizes. They include:
- Prominent profile on the Enterprise Nation site and in a national newspaper
- Thousands of pounds worth of prizes in home office supplies and technology from our sponsors including Regus, Staples, HP, Douwe Egberts, Access Storage and Moneypenny
- A brand review with top creative agency, Jump To, who act for a number of home grown businesses such as New Covent Garden Food, Tyrrells and Bacheldre Mill
- Free entry to the Enterprise Nation Conference
- A romantic get-away break for the Home Business Couple of the Year!
Judges
Joining Emma Jones, (who runs Enterprise Nation) on the judging panel will be:
- Rachel Bridge, Enterprise Editor, The Sunday Times
- Mark Dixon, Chief Executive & Founder, Regus
- Karen and Mike Hollands, co-founders of Toniks and 2008 Home Business of the Year
How to enter
Entry to the competition is free and open to any home business in the UK. The closing date is Friday, November 6th and winners will be announced at the Enterprise Nation Conference on Home Enterprise Day, Friday 20th November.
]]>Although prizes for 2009-10 are still being finalised, winners can expect to receive a cash reward and free office space at a Technium facility, along with free consultancy and marketing support.
Participating companies must demonstrate:
- A fairly well developed patentable idea or technology which involves a strong R&D element.
- A strong interest in receiving practical advice from external advisors to generate new ideas and support to develop a business plan.
Interested entrants are asked to submit a basic application by 26 March, with selected proposals then given assistance and advice to develop a more in-depth business plan by 29 April.
An independent panel of judges will select up to eight contestants to give a short presentation of their business plan, from which the overall winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held at the Marriott Hotel in Swansea on 24 June.
Entries will be assessed against a broad range of criteria, including innovation and growth potential, financial sustainability, capabilities and track record, and viability.
For further information about the Technium Challenge 2009-10, visit the Technium website
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