Recently I participated in the Ignite 2012 Student Enterprise Programme, this year held at the Cardiff University Conference Centre in Cyncoed, a suburb of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.
What is Ignite?
"The Ignite programme offers you the chance to become more enterprising, creative, employable and learn more about setting up a business."
"Using the model of business start-up as a vehicle for enterprise skills development, the programme aims to cultivate innovative individuals who can spot opportunities, tackle problems and work out original and inventive ways to change things for the better."
During your time at university and afterwards, you will be invited to participate in workshops and seminars and courses, to help you apply and use the skills you learned in university.
These workshops roughly fall into three categories, and many overlap:
1) Programs to learn specific skills needed within the Creative Industries (New Media, Animation, Theatre, Film, Dance, Music, Fashion, Graphic Design, etc.) - these programs are designed to make you more employable.
2) Programs to teach you how to manage or run someone else's company.
3) Programs to teach you how to launch your own business.
From the quotes I posted above, you can see that Ignite fits into the category of extracurricular workshops offered to university students in Wales, which focuses on teaching you the skills needed to run your own business.
Every university usually has several highly-qualified staff members whose job it is to help students become entrepreneurs. They are called 'Enterprise Officers'.
At Ignite, these 'Enterprise Officers' have organized an intensive workshop over several days. Going to Ignite gives you an unusual chance to spend a lot of time with these officers, so that's one good reason alone to consider the course.
Every one of the Ignite enterprise officers I met were friendly, helpful and full of optimism, as well as being rooted in good, practical advice.
Here's the bottom line on Ignite: It does what it says on the box, and it does it well.
You will NOT learn everything you need to learn about running your own business at an Ignite Workshop - there are plenty of other programs and courses that can teach you the rudiments of writing a business plan, acquiring grants and start-up financing, etc.
Ask your Enterprise Officers to refer you to other programs that will do this . . .
But what Ignite promises to do, it does very well:
You basically attend a number of mostly informative classes during 3 days. During these 3 days you are placed into groups. Each group has to come up with an idea to make money within 24 hours.
Being in the groups is a good experience, because you get to network with other students like yourself. Each group has a sampling of student from each of the 5 universities that participate.
On Saturday, you get to pitch your idea as a group to a panel of business experts, similar to the TV show "The Dragons' Den". If the 'dragons' like your idea, they lend you 'seed' money to use for 24 hours.
By the end of the 24 hours your feel as if you and your fellow group members have become a type of family! Most of the groups are small enough so that everyone gets to contribute, each according to their own, individual talents and abilities.
I was impressed by how professional, respectful and kind all of the other students and staff were. Everyone seemed to have sense of being 'in this together'.
Ignite is a really great program for students, and I heartily recommend it! But is there room for improvement?
Yes.
The event is staged over 3 days and this is too short - it forces you to attend from 8 in the morning until 9.30 at night, and it's likely that this excludes students with families and work commitments.
If you are a student who lives in halls, or who shares a flat with mates, then this program is perfect for you. Your roommates will be intrigued by your involvement, and they might even be your first customers.
But if you are disabled, a single mother or father with kids to care for, or a student who is working their way through school, then Ignite seems to make demands which don't seem to consider students with limitations . . .
- I hope Ignite will fix this, because an enormous number of students attending Welsh universities are commuting students, who might be put off by the schedule of the event.
This criticism should not be exaggerated, since, if you can arrange any way to work around your personal limitations, then Ignite is really worth the time and effort - you will not regret it!
I suggest that disabled students ask up front what accommodation is being made for students who are physically unable to endure the rigorous schedule and physically demanding group activities.
A better solution might be for Ignite to run 2 sessions, one held over 3 days, which many young, single students with less demanding lives might enjoy, while also running a 2nd session later in the year targeting the groups that would seem to be left out of the planning.
That said, if you are a mature student, a commuter, a single parent or working parent, or a carer for someone sick, elderly or disabled, I would suggest that if you decide, based on these limitations not to participate, that you voice these concerns to the friendly and helpful enterprise officers at your respective institution.
Ignite is very well thought out program, and you will NOT regret being a part of it!
IGNITE OFFICIAL WEBSITE
AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media
Study Abroad in Britain, Europe and the U.S.A. / Canada Website.
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© 2012 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods
