Students came in their hundreds, and as they squeezed through the entrance at Rainton Meadows Arena to get the best seats in the auditorium, entrepreneurs from throughout the region were on hand to offer words of advice about being enterprising.A staggering 1,300 budding young entrepreneurs flocked to the Cloud9 Youth Summit organised by the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, held on Wednesday 25th February, to hear words of wisdom from a host of business hotshots from throughout the UK, who flew in to share their stories and offer tips on becoming a success.
The summit, aimed at ambitious young people aged 15-26 from the region’s schools, colleges and universities was billed as a day of inspiration, opportunity, and knowledge-sharing between young people and entrepreneurs.
As an expectant hush fell on the cavernous room (where it was standing room only) the summit was kicked off by Chester-le-Street born Caspar Berry – the energetic host for the day.
Caspar shared his entrepreneurial tale which took him from being a child star on Byker Grove to his time as co-founder of local firm Twenty First Century Media and kept an upbeat, high tempo atmosphere throughout. He drew the best advice from the speakers as well as signposting the huge range of activities taking place throughout the day.
Tre Azam, who dazzled and inspired the audience at the Start Local, Think Global event last year, was the first guest speaker. Tre, who was the most controversial star of BBC’s The Apprentice, wowed the crowd with his truly inspiring journey of how he overcame being in a wheelchair for a year after a car crash to launching his family business in America just two years later.
Within a year he was a millionaire, but months later the business failed, leaving him with a pregnant wife and no money.
Tre told the summit: "I walked into the Job Centre and said I was a brilliant young entrepreneur who had once been a millionaire, and a job that would get me £30,000 or £40,000 would do. Once she'd stopped laughing at me, she said 'you might have been a millionaire but you've barely passed your A levels - where are you going to find a job like that?’
"I'd never been interested in learning until that point. I always thought it was something the teachers wanted me to do, but on that day I enrolled on a training course. Now, I see the value of learning - people who don't want to learn or think it's cool to be thick make me furious.
“There are so many more opportunities now to help you become an entrepreneur. When I was at school the only help you got was in Business Studies which taught you how to work for someone else."
Tre was followed onto stage by top teenage author and blogger jellyellie, who spoke frankly on a range of issues from what it is like being a teenager in business, to entrepreneurialism, education and technology. Interestingly, she was only 15-years-old when she signed her first publishing deal for her book ‘How Teenagers Think’ promoting the fact that all young people should “seize their opportunities.”
The third speaker on-stage was Dragon’s Den success story Imran Hakim, whose appearance on the hit TV show with an interactive, electronic teddy called the iTeddy made him an instantly recognised entrepreneur.
Speaking on stage, he said: "The idea for the iTeddy came when me and my younger brother were trying to come up with an idea for my niece's first birthday. He came up with a card that had a mirror inside, but I thought that was a bit dull. I thought about how I could combine something traditional with technology and I said 'hey, what about an iTeddy?' We thought it was cool and I started drawing up some designs."
Imran then went on to tell the audience about his Dragon’s Den experience, where Dragon’s Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis invested £140,000 into his venture.
"A lot of people think they spend all day every day running my business, but it's nothing like that in reality. After the initial investment and launch they have left me to it but their advice, and just them being involved, has been an inspiration to me,” he said.
Before the lunch break Ajaz Ahmed, founder of the UK’s largest ISP, Freeserve spun out one of the most memorable quotes of the day: “Attitude is the one thing you have total and utter control of and it is attitude that will take you places,” he said
The activities kept on running through the break and over lunch, as a group of break-dancers born out of Northumbria University, Fort-Fresh, performed a hip-hop break dance routine on stage, whilst a trio from Heartburn Entertainment dazzled the crowd with a visually stunning angle grinding performance, as well as UV poi and juggling.
Local group Surface Area Dance also performed a classical dance act to a violin composition and Sunderland artist-entrepreneur Graham Cleland held a series of live graffiti workshops. He showed the young people how to design street art ‘guerrilla graffiti’ based on how they were inspired throughout the day and the first person to join the workshop was Tre, who re-created the tag he’d designed as a teenager.
The biggest crowd puller on the day was our very own North East celebrity, winner of Channel 4’s Big Brother 6 Anthony Hutton. As an ambassador for young people, Anthony managed to discuss his reality TV show experience as well as the forthcoming launch of his chain of hairdressers in between the screams of teenage girls yelling his name.
Anthony originally dreamed of becoming a footballer but when that career didn’t take off he plumped for a job with the Royal Mail as a postal worker.
He said: “I knew I wanted more out of my life than being a postman. I wasn’t content so I started thinking about what I am good at and what I liked. I enjoyed looking after myself and making sure I looked good and I also enjoyed dancing, so I decided to join a 70s dance troupe and I started a hairdressing course.”
Years later Anthony won Big Brother 6 and earned £200,000 in only a single day after leaving the Big Brother house, through a series of lucrative magazine deals. Instead of frittering the money away, Anthony invested it in property and has used the Big Brother experience as a springboard for his future plans. He now hopes to open a chain of hair salons over the next few years.
Students were then given a chance to hear from a panel of entrepreneurs in the form of ‘Chief’ John Lawler (author of one of the most recent stories featured on If we can, you can) from Madventurer, Newspepper founder Hermione Way and the young man behind MiniG Media, Jonathan Grubin. Caspar interviewed each to draw out their entrepreneurial stories before opening to questions from the floor.
Last, but certainly not least, Scotland’s Entrepreneur of the Year Mick Jackson closed the speaker programme. As the founder of Wildhearts - a charity committed to launching companies that fight poverty – Mick, who was also in a metal rock band, spoke about how he didn’t have a job until he was 26.
Speaking about being entrepreneurial, he said: “Find the thing you love and just go for it and that is where you’ll find what you want to do. Doing a job that you don’t like is like going out with a girl you don’t really fancy, it will get you down in the long term.
“An entrepreneur isn’t necessarily about running your own business or being rich, an entrepreneur is someone who takes control of their life and takes it where they want it to go. If you have an idea, keep thinking about how you can make it work until the answer comes.”
As well as the key speaker programme in the main auditorium, the day was also jam packed with topic stations where delegates could speak with entrepreneurs, a voxpop camera where TV presenter Kim Inglis interviewed the speakers, who were on-hand throughout the day, an enterprise trading area and an area to showcase young entrepreneurs’ business products.
A series of interactive challenges also grabbed the attention of the most dynamic students, including the Northern Film & Media supported Film Challenge, where 20 young people entered a competition to produce a reportage video of the day to capture their experience and perspectives.
The youngsters were loaned 20 flip cameras to record an hour of footage to help Northern Film and Media produce an official film of the day. The person or team who produce the best one minute of footage will win the opportunity to work on the official film with a professional editor in an editing suite, with the expert guidance of Twenty First Century Media.
All materials collected on the day will ensure a lasting legacy and provide valuable resources for teachers, students and aspiring entrepreneurs alike.
In true entrepreneurial style, the delegates were also set a Live Challenge that allowed them to come up with solutions to six burning business questions posed by real entrepreneurs from across the region, which may indeed help shape the future of those three businesses. Those who delivered the best answers were awarded an iPod shuffle live on the stage.
Cloud9 was given its name by Jay Arnott, a delegate at the Entrepreneurs’ Forum Start Local, Think Global Conference last November, with the logo being designed live by Graham Clelland during an Enterprise Week workshop at Emmanuel College, Gateshead.
The day also saw the launch of enterprising.at, which was set up by one of the days earlier speakers, 17-year-old entrepreneur Jonathan Grubin - dubbed as one of the most well networked teenagers in the region.
enterprising.at aims to inspire, support and promote young people in business. Created by young entrepreneurs, for young entrepreneurs it will be a free-to-access community of likeminded peers. The first member-led event took place straight after Cloud9 where a group of young and aspiring entrepreneurs discussed the issues they face in getting their businesses off the ground and achieving their ambitions.
Visit http://www.ifwecanyoucantalk.co.uk/ for more information on enterprising.at and to take part in various enterprising discussions.
Whilst Cloud9 was headlined by the Entrepreneurs’ Forum, there was crucial support from key partners including The Prince’s Trust, Make Your Mark, Young Enterprise North East, RTC North, Big Ideas Youth Challenge and the North East Enterprise Bond.
David Beavis, North East Regional Director of The Prince's Trust said: “A great day. We were delighted to be involved and I do think this should be an annual event because you really have something to build on.”
Forum Chief Executive Carole Beverley added: “We must give special thanks to One NorthEast who really put their faith in us to deliver a magnificent day for these young people.”
“I was overwhelmed that we attracted over 1,300 young people to the event. It just goes to show that the entrepreneurial spark is alive in this region and we have so many budding entrepreneurs who just need to have their hearts and minds fired by hearing some of the country’s most talented, articulate and interesting emerging entrepreneurs.
“It was the speaker line up and the respect that they received from a transfixed audience that made Cloud9 the most immense day of inspiration for the North East’s young people.
“What a fantastic day it was – we’ll definitely be doing it again next year.”
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