The Year 8 Future Business Magnates Team at King James I Academy have claimed victory in the 2024 enterprise competition, run by Business Durham. The winners were announced at a culmination event at Hardwick Hall Hotel.
Now in its 19th year, the County Durham Future Business Magnates Competiton gives young people the opportunity to develop a range of enterprise skills with guidance from a local business partner. The King James team, with students Holly Furnell, Verona Scott, James Cason, Harley Mains, Lydia Haley, Zackery Roddam and Filip Franiak was teamed with Nigel Freeman and Stephen Henry from Newton Aycliffe business, BTS Fabrications.
Each year, the competition has a different theme and in 2024, the challenge was to develop a product within the theme of ‘What a wonderful world – can you make it better?’. To fulfil this, the team created an innovative product called ‘Smart Weigh’, which is an eco-friendly, self weighing bin designed to help reduce food waste in homes and combat the cost of living crisis. The bin has sensors that link to an app which allows you to monitor food waste. It has two compartments, one of which allows for bio-degradable rubbish to be turned into compost. Users can even earn points based on how much waste is recycled or composted.
Teams from 11 secondary schools across the county entered the competition this year, taking part in a series of six business-related challenges which included everything from team building, product design, marketing, finance and ultimately, pitching their business to a panel of industry experts at the close of the competition. Prior to this final challenge, King James lay in second place, just one point behind the winning team. However, thanks to an outstanding pitch for the final challenge, they topped the leader board and claimed the Future Business Magnates title.
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