It's victory for students at Holyrood Secondary with a unique design

A team of young entrepreneurs from Holyrood Secondary School has won the Scotland Regional Final of the 2017 Enterprise Challenge competition, a flagship education initiative driven by Mosaic, HRH The Prince of Wales' mentoring charity and part of The Prince's Trust.
By The Newsroom
Published 27th Mar 2017, 13:48 BST
Updated 9th May 2017, 18:59 BST
Team Holyrood.Team Holyrood.
Team Holyrood.

‘Team Holyrood’ beat stiff competition from teams from Bellahouston Academy and Shawlands Academy with their idea for a tablet and microphone device that would allow teacher instructions to be translated into various languages. There are over 30 languages spoken at the School.

The teams pitched their ideas in a Dragons Den-style event to a prestigious panel of judges including Jawad Khursheed (Managing Director of Vitality Optical), Siobhan Mackenzie (award winning Scottish fashion designer) and Maqbool Rasul (of the Rasul Group and Mosaic Scotland Ambassador).

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Team Holyrood will now progress to the Enterprise Challenge Grand Final in London on May 17 where they will compete against winning schools from the North West, West Midlands, London, Yorkshire and South East for the chance to become national champions.

The overall winning team will win a prize of £2,500 for their school plus a further £500 to invest in developing their business idea and making it a commercial reality.

Previous winners have also enjoyed tea at 10 Downing Street and a unique tour of Clarence House.

Team Holyrood featured pupils Asad Khan, Hassan Ahmad, Iman Khan, who said: “Being involved in the Mosaic project has been a wonderful journey. It has also taught us different business skills, teamwork, communication and confidence. Mosaic mentors have been a great help sharing their experience. We are very happy and proud to win and represent Scotland.”

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The keynote speaker at the event was Kawser Quaser, BBC Scotland weather presenter. She said: “It’s been a wonderful event and an absolute pleasure to be a part of it. The students were brave, articulate with great ideas and their pitches very impressive. They should all be so proud to get to this stage of the competition and I wish the group going ahead to the finals every success.”

Chairman of the judging panel Maqbool Rasul, said: “It’s been a brilliant experience judging the young people today, and especially watching them develop their entrepreneurial skills this early through their schools. The Mosaic Enterprise Challenge is a fantastic programme and I’m honoured to be the Ambassador for Mosaic Scotland. It was a tough competition and I’m sure Team Holyrood will do Scotland justice at the Grand Finals!”

Atta Yaqub, Scotland Regional Manager for Mosaic, said: “Team Holyrood did a great job pitching their brilliant idea. That said, all the teams did very well indeed and I didn’t envy the judges having to make a choice. I am very proud that Scotland is home to so many brilliant young minds and I’m certain many will go on to be our business leaders of the future. A special thank you must go to our team of volunteer mentors who give up their time to coach, support and inspire the pupils taking part.”