On a cold, blustery Monday evening this week we were honoured that, for the second consecutive year, we were sponsors of the 2010 Environment Young Entrepreneurs Scheme at the Marriott County Hall Hotel, in Central London.
Now in its fifteenth year, YES is an innovative competition raising awareness of the potential commercial value of bioscience and environmental science ideas among postgraduate students / postdoctoral scientists. The competition, organised by our friends at the Natural Environment Research Council, provides planning, financial and strategic business training for young scientists, culminating in teams of young scientists creating a business plan, marketing strategy and pitch of their clever and innovative imaginary products. In a ‘Dragons Den’ style presentation, the teams have to sell their ideas to an esteemed panel of business and academic experts who decide the winners in each category.
As official sponsors of the event, Indigo’s Managing Director Robert Fisher and Managing Consultant Adam Prothero we were to thrilled meet the teams and offer our range of leading management training workshops to the winning Environment YES group. This year saw the winning team, pictured below, succeed with their ‘hypothetical’ creation of a spawning stimulant for the rapidly diminishing European Eel population! With Eels sometimes selling at nearly £4,000 a kilogram, we could see why the panel of experts saw the potential of such an invention and why investing looked attractive – whether notional or not!
A good evening was had by all – with special thanks to Emily and Tracey from NERC for looking after everybody so well.
