Our Apprentice hunt down to the last four

The finalists in Financial Mail’s MoneySense Apprentice Challenge for young entrepreneurs, which was open to girl’s schools throughout Britain, have been announced.

The competition is the second enterprise challenge run by Financial Mail and is supported by the Royal Bank of Scotland’s MoneySense programme for schools.

The challenge for entrants was to invent, cost and bring to market a game – either board or computer – to teach personal finance in schools and to make it fun and enjoyable.

From September 2011, personal finance will become a compulsory subject in schools.

The four finalists are Team Phoenix of King’s High, Warwick; Game Girls from Plymouth College, iFloos from Cherwell School, Oxford; and Money Minded from Withington Girls’ School, Manchester.

The judges, who included stars of BBC TV’s The Apprentice, Margaret Mountford, Saira Khan and Tim Campbell, said the quality was ‘extraordinarily’ high, making it extremely difficult to pick the finalists.

The final will take place at London’s InterContinental Hotel on March 1 at the close of Financial Mail’s Breaking the Mould conference.

It will be held in the ‘boardroom’ of Mountford in front of a live audience.

The conference was set up by Financial Mail with the aim of broadening the career horizons of young women and the theme this year is apprenticeships.

In recognition of the importance of encouraging young women to consider a wide range of career opportunities, the event has received sponsorship from some of Britain’s best-known companies and organisations, including NatWest, the Serious Fraud Office, O2, IBM and the Food and Drink Federation.

The apprenticeship theme is being supported by British Gas, which runs a large and award-winning apprenticeship scheme and has taken on nearly 1,000 young trainees since the beginning of 2008.

Another supporter is DIY giant B&Q, which announced this month that it is doubling the intake on its apprenticeship programme to take on 300 young people from September.

For the Breaking the Mould agenda click here.

For more information about the MoneySense Apprentice Challenge click here.

For more information about Breaking the Mould click here.

For FMWF’s interview with Margaret Mountford click here.

For Saira Khan’s FMWF column click here.

Tags: Breaking the Mould, competition, inspiration, Margaret Mountford, MoneySense Apprentice Challenge, Saira Khan, Students, Tim Campbell, women in business

Posted by Vicki Owen on Sunday, February 14th, 2010 at 9:01 am.

Filed under Employment, Equality, Events, News, Parenting, SMEs, Starting a Business, Students, Tagged as: , Breaking the Mould, competition, inspiration, Margaret Mountford, MoneySense Apprentice Challenge, Saira Khan, Students, Tim Campbell, women in business.