[PROFESSOR SARA CARTER]: Thank you Anna and good evening to everybody here. I know it’s conventional for judges to say what a hard time that we had, and how difficult their job was, but I’m going to break with tradition tonight. Perhaps it was because I listened to [Sir] Tom Farmer earlier, and he inspired just a sense of honesty and a down-to-earthness about us all I think.

So I’m going to break with tradition and say just how much fun the judges had yesterday. The people who really had the hard job were the eight finalists, who had to endure a whole day of presentations and interviews. The judges didn’t just have the fun, we also had the privilege of meeting eight very inspiring young people and learning about their businesses. And for that I think we’d all like to thank Shell for that honour.

Of course we did have one difficult job and that was selecting the one, overall winner. And it was especially hard this year because all eight of the finalists had outstanding business plans and many of them had already achieved significant success. We thought that the quality of the business plans and their personal presentations were absolutely inspiring. As you’ve already seen tonight, the businesses were very diverse; they covered a range of sectors. There was service sectors, there were retail businesses, there were some people who had built a technology platform... We were all, I think, overjoyed to see that young people are out there inventing products and manufacturing them as well.

Many of these businesses are already global in their reach; they’re having markets accessed overseas. Some of them even have their manufacturing outsourced overseas. And perhaps most importantly, many of these businesses were social in their nature as well. These eight young people aren’t just about making a profit, they’re also about giving back to their local communities and to the global community too. Of course, in the end, we had to make a decision. I think I’m allowed to say that it came down to the final two businesses for which there was the most debate.

But, in the end, it was a completely unanimous decision. And I’m gonna stop there and thank you very much.

[LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE]

[JAMES SMITH]: I think what happens is that I open the envelope and read it out and Mark, you make the award. I don’t want to... I don’t know what’s in here. I don’t want to raise the tension too much or cause your pulses to raise too far but, can I take just half a minute and thank Mark for a really super speech.

Mark, it was with the head, it was from the heart, it really was a motivational speech and I think the two great things is you’ve been in business yourself so you know what that’s like and you’re in government now and you’re talking about cleaning a path so these people can succeed, so a really brilliant speech so thank you very much indeed.

[APPLAUSE]

I have to put me glasses on. How many envelopes are there, oh no this is it. And the winner is Jessica Grosvenor for Freelance Training and Consultancy. Well done Jessica.

[APPLAUSE]

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

[REPORTER]: Good afternoon, I’m delighted to welcome you to [the] Shell LiveWIRE Live! event 2010. Now today during the day over a hundred young entrepreneurs are going to come together and learn all about how to start up a new business. And tonight is the real excitement, it’s the announcement of the Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year award 2010. Hundreds of people have tried to apply for this award and [have] been whittled down to only eight finalists by a panel of judges that includes ‘Dragon’s Den’ judge Duncan Bannatyne and our very own Hermione Way. It promises to be an amazing day. Let’s go inside.

Tell us a little bit about the business that made it to the final eight.

[MANSOOR MOHAMMAD HAMAYUN]: What we do is develop solutions for rural electrification. Basically, [there’s] a solar panel on the top and it outputs normal 220-volt electricity.

[JANNEN VAMADEVA]: Anytime Doctor is an attempt to sort of solve some problems for patients – patients who can’t see their GPs easily, patients with mobility problems. What it does is it takes very, sort of, low risk medical conditions and moves them online.

[NICK PROCTOR]: We look to lower businesses’ energy costs by lowering the amount of energy they use, and also reduce the amount they pay for it. So it’s very much looking at making people more energy efficient.

[CHARMAINE KEMP]: I started Wheelie Good Mobility which specialises in used mobility scooters. We recondition old ones and we get them back out into the community for a fraction of the price of what they would’ve been new.

[MICHEAL HOLLIDAY]: We’re a mobile architectural and environmental design practice so we travel around rural Scotland going to communities who don’t usually have architects and we hold workshops, we hold exhibitions, and design houses.

[TOM ALLASON]: In the end of the day we’d like to make Shutl a verb, you know? We’d like people to stop thinking about getting things delivered to them and instead choose to get things ‘shutled’ to them.

[WILLIAM ALLINGHAM]: Being in the Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards has been just absolutely brilliant. I’ve met some absolutely amazing people and, you know, it’s an achievement in itself so hopefully we can go on further and get that ten grand and hopefully, you know, put a bit more money into research and development of the products.

[JENNY MARSDEN]: The reason we run programmes like Shell LiveWIRE and Shell Springboard is we want to support small businesses in the UK. Small businesses are essential to the economy, they employ two-thirds of the people, they’re responsible for the mass majority of our GDP, you know, and we want to try and help small businesses in what are very challenging times.

[JAMIE MURRAY WELLS]: I think my first tip for anyone wanting to start a business would be to basically start as small as possible, see how it goes and test the market.

[SIR TOM FARMER]: If you want to succeed in business of course you’ve got to have the right finance, you’ve got to have a product or service that customer’s are gonna buy. But there’s more than that to it. You’ve gotta have enthusiasm, you’ve gotta have energy and it’s gotta be an obsession – a magnificent obsession; a passion in every way.

[PENNY POWER]: You’ve gotta really... you need to know yourself first, and find out what your value is to others. And then, on that, look at the business idea you’ve got and look for the big picture of that business idea. Why would somebody else get behind that idea? So what is the contribution your business is making towards humanity?

[WAYNE HEMINGWAY]: There are lots of people out there with good ideas and they need a leg up to have a go and so Shell LiveWIRE gives people a chance, gives them, number one, the exposure, number two, it can give them a bit of cash that everybody needs when they’re starting a business.

[STUART ANDERSON]: We worked quite hard this year at getting the right speakers at the event. So we wanted a whole mix of people from Penny Power who does one thing, Doug Richard does another, and [Sir] Tom Farmer does another, so what was great was they all sent the same message to the entrepreneurs but in a different way so they kind of... the messages are really hammered home.

[ANDREW DIXON]: [This is] the first time I’ve been involved in it, so I thought it was... it was just very inspirational. I thought, you know, the level of energy, the belief, commitment and just also like the nous as well of all the finalists was exceptional.

[REPORTER]: [You have] just officially won the 2010 Shell LiveWIRE Award, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, how do you feel?

[JESSICA GROSVENOR]: Fantastic. Overwhelmed.

[REPORTER]: Have you texted your mum? Have you told her?

[JESSICA GROSVENOR]: No, I haven’t told my mum!

[REPORTER]: Oh my God, you have to tell her! Tell us a little bit about your business that has just won the young entrepreneur of the Year Award.

[JESSICA GROSVENOR]: Freelance Training and Consultancy provide work-based learning for private and public sectors and individuals in a variety of sectors, including apprenticeship programmes, pre-employment programmes and upskilling the workforce.

[REPORTER] Well, unfortunately it’s time to go home here from the Shell LiveWIRE Live! event 2010. It’s been a truly inspirational day, everyone’s really enjoyed themselves, there’s been some amazing keynote speeches, and it’s made someone who has no idea about business want to go home and start up a business tonight. So, I’d say it’s been a success.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]