Make Your Mark with a Tenner loans young people £10 for one month and challenges them to make a profit and make a difference in just one month – March 2010 to be precise!
The big name backers who have, for the second year running, put up their own cash to demonstrate their belief in young people in the UK are the serial entrepreneur and star of Dragons’ Den Peter Jones - who himself ran his first business before he was 18 - and Michael and Xochi Birch, the inspirational founders of social networking site Bebo.
Registration is already open at www.enterpriseuk.org.uk/tenner and is open until 11 February 2010. The competition is open to anyone under the age of 19 and Tenners can be loaned to schools, colleges and youth organisations providing they have their own bank account.
To register all we need from an organisation is an organisation’s address, contact details, the name and email address of the signatory on the organisations's account and the number of students taking part.
We'll then loan the organisation as many tenners as they requested. Simple.
Students then have the month of March to take part in the competition, entries must be submitted between 29 March and 9 April 2010 and the tenner loan repaid by the end of April 2010.
Last year the average student in the top 100 made £42! Participants are encouraged to give their profit to a charity, invest it in a community project or use it to develop their entrepreneurial ideas.
During February we will provide resources to support participants including a launch video, a student logbook and a teacher toolkit. We will also work to arrange a visit from one of our entrepreneurial ambassadors or business volunteers to support participants during Tenner month.
All students who take part in the competition will receive a certificate outlining the skills they have developed and the winning team will win a share of £1,000 start up capital and support from a business mentor to help them develop their entrepreneurial ideas.
"Through initiatives such as 'Make Your Mark with a Tenner’ we can inspire the next wave of entrepreneurs to make a change from a 'can I?’ to an 'I can’ culture"
Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
How can I get involved?
For more information and to apply to take part please visit: www.makeyourmark.org.uk/tenner. Organisations can borrow as many tenners as they like, the more the merrier!
Email: tenner@makeyourmark.org.uk