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As new members of the Baldwins Group, Rawlinsons is excited to share details of their national young entrepreneur award program with the Greater Peterborough network.
Baldwins KickStart is a national annual award celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit found amongst the UK’s young generation. The award, which started out as a Midlands-based competition but in 2017 launched nationally, has its origin in their desire to help foster a spirit of enterprise and endeavour in young people. Kickstart is aimed at helping some of the aspiring; ambitious young people take their first step into the world of business.
The scheme is set to give financial support, mentoring and business advice to 18 to 25-year-olds looking to start up a business. Baldwins decided very specifically to target ‘start up’ businesses rather than choosing someone that is already successful and give them a ‘prize’ for what they have already done. The whole idea of KickStart is to take raw talent and fresh ideas, and help nurture some of these fledgling businesses to success.
The award for each year’s winner will be a £10,000 grant and £10,000 worth of mentoring and accountancy advice. The two runners up will be presented with £5,000 of mentoring and accountancy advice. The awards launched in 2013 and will run annually for 10 years, meaning Baldwins will be handing out a total of £300,000 to aspiring young entrepreneurs.
There is a real hot-bed of young talent, the diversity and quality of the ideas Baldwins has seen over the years has been outstanding. The more people Baldwins spoke to about the KickStart programme, the more they realised it was very much needed. With it, they have created a 10 year sustainable plan to work with outstanding young talent and create some amazing new businesses. Not only will this create 30 new entrepreneurs, but it will create businesses which will support the economy for decades.
Entries open February 21st and are set to close August 31st.
The entry criteria is as follows:
- You have to be aged 18 to 25 years old at the time the final judging takes place which is w/c/4th September
- You have a business idea but have not yet started trading, or
- You have a start up business that started trading on or after 31st August 2016.
Once the initial application process closes for entry, 10 semi-finalists will be chosen and invited in for interview with the senior management team. Through this process 3 finalists will be invited back to present their ideas in front of a live audience at a glittering Gala dinner on 16th November at Edgbaston Stadium, home to Warwickshire County Cricket Club.