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| All smiles from the winning team at the 2015 Business is Awesome seminar |
The Rotary Club of Remuera, NZ held another successful
Business is Awesome one-day seminar for high performing Auckland secondary
school students in Rotary District 9920 who are considering business careers.
109 students from 13 schools from central, south, and east Auckland attended
the event on May 14, 2015 at Waipuna Hotel and Conference Centre in Mt
Wellington in Auckland.
The Business is Awesome program was started by the Rotary
Club of Remuera many years ago, and it is organised by its Vocational
Committee. The seminar is a mix of keynote speeches by prominent and successful
business leaders with group exercises and business puzzles simulating
challenges and realities of real business life. It has evolved over the
years and now takes the form of a Dragons’ Den. The day began with
presentations by two non-Rotarian entrepreneurs, Mooks from steel fabrication
and rigging business MP Rigging, and Megan Sargent of Abes Bagels, who spoke
about the businesses they had started.
The students then worked in teams to develop a business idea
of their own, before pitching their ideas in a market place to a group of
visiting business owners, specialising in marketing, finance, and management,
who selected the winning team. The judges were Chun Chung of Bakers Delight
bakery chain; Josh Wong of IT management company TwoPointZero; Norm Johnston of
Leonard Knight Chartered accountants and member of the Rotary Club of Remuera;
plus three teachers from the attending schools.
The business ideas that were proposed by students attending
the seminar ranged from a mobile phone battery charger powered by the motion of
walking, to a food bus based on a double-decker bus with the food prepared
upstairs and sold downstairs.
The teachers commented that the presentation was of a high
standard, and some valuable ideas were generated in a very interactive
atmosphere, to the obvious benefit of their students, who enjoyed working with
students from other schools. Plans are in place to repeat the Business is
Awesome seminar in 2016.
Words and photos: Leigh Marshall, Rotary Club of Remuera, NZ
