The inspiration for this competition came about back in November 2009, at a Sefton EBP IT Diploma Taster day, during which I was talking to a Birkdale High School pupil about making money from mobile apps.
Sefton EBP is an organisation that delivers enterprise solutions to the secondary schools of Sefton.
It was only when I bumped into David Pollock CEO of Chess Telecommunications at the RAW 2010 networking event in Jan 2010, that the idea of creating a competition as part of a real enterprise activity started to become a reality, and I approached Sefton EBP, to make it happen.
I wanted to make sure that the I found the right partners, that would create a win-win-win scenario for all the partners involved, and as such as part of the winning package it was negotiated that as well as the winning team winning iPads, they would also get 20% of the profits and the school would receive 5% of the profits.
The competition not only involved creating a app for the mobile industry, but also produce a business plan, which had to include market research and a marketing and sales strategy.
From over 20 Sefton Secondary Schools, 10 finalists were short-listed, to present at yesterday's final at Aintree Racecourse:
- Team App from Deyes High School
- Does this Look Good on Me from Maghull High School
- Scale Down and Style Up
- Epoxi from Deyes High School
- Systems from Birkdale High School
- Walloping Wheelchairs from Deyes High School
- Athena from Greenbank High School
- Amazing Enterprizes from Birkdale High School,
- Origanimation from Deyes High School and
- AYB Productions from Birkdale High School
All the finialists displayed a high level of innovation and creativity, that not only blew me away but also the judging panel of:
- David Pollock CEO Chess Telecoms and Co-Founder of May Contain Nuts
- Dylan Thwaites Co-Founder of May Contain Nuts, and
- Kevin Jones from Tecmark
The winning mobile app, was from Athena, from Greenbank High School, which combined the idea of celebrities with various competitions.
The judges commented:
"I was really impressed by the quality of the work the
students produced. The winning team
offered a great combination of creative concepts, a good presentation and a comprehensive
business plan"
The two runners up came from Deyes High School
2nd - Epoxi - Deyes High School, with a innovative and funny splat attack game app
3rd - Team App - Deyes High School - with down hill drop, an innovative and creative snow ball game app
Both teams' app will be produced by May Contain Nuts. Vicki Appleton from Sefton EBP commented:
"All the teams which entered had some really creative ideas
and really thought out their business plans
Sefton has quite a few potential business entrepreneurs in
the future"
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