Young Enterprise, Illumina, at the East London Finals

Five representatives from this year's Young Enterprise team, Illumina, competed against other school teams in the East London Finals of the Company Programme competition on Monday 13th May. Luke Winter, Evie Nguyen, Max Campbell (M.D.), Jasreen Ghag and Ethan Abbate travelled to the Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP offices in London where they showcased their company. Students had already completed a detailed business report for the previous round of the competition. As with the previous round, students needed to set up a trade stand to demonstrate and give information on their product - multisensory candles designed to help various mental health issues. The judges interviewed the five representatives at their stand where they needed to explain the inspiration behind the product and trade stand presentation, while they also tempted the judges with the scents of the five candles (which just so happened to be represented in the outfit choices of the team members!). The team were then taken off to a separate interview room where judges quizzed them on the Company Programme process, their experiences and next steps. After that, the team were greeted by other members of the team, parents and Mr Gilmore, who had travelled to London to show their support.  Finally, the team needed to give a presentation to everyone at the event. They were the last to present but soon had the audience participating in finding the hidden Illumina leaflets under their chairs to give a visual representation of the sheer number of people struggling with mental health issues. They did a fantastic job in all areas and were honoured to be awarded the Marketing Award. Sadly, they didn’t proceed to the next stage of the competition, narrowly missing out to 'Seed Paper' and 'Light up bookmarks'.

We are extremely proud of the achievements of this team and to win an award at this tough stage is telling of the hard work, dedication and business acumen of this wonderful group of students, both those representing them and those behind the scenes.  We are also very grateful for the support that has been offered to the team from peers, teachers, parents and the P.A. 

The company will be dissolved in July, so please make sure you get your candles before then to avoid disappointment! Buy here: https://illuminacandles.co.uk/orders

Mrs Harris, Head of Economics and Business