On 14th March Enactus Imperial took to the stage at Amazon HQ to showcase their entrepreneurialism at the 2017 Enactus UK Regional Competition.

From April to July of this year, Enactus teams across 36 countries will compete where the quality and impact of their projects will be evaluated by business leaders serving as judges. These dynamic and inspiring events encourage creativity and reward results, ultimately leading to stronger programs and more lives improved. 

Projects presented by Enactus Imperial this year include:

Kenya Jiko Stoves

The project involves us working with our partners in Gaichanjiru, Kenya to start a Jiko Stove businesss. Jiko stoves are more efficient than traditional stoves by burning more efficiently, thus lowering the amount of firewood required and reduced cooking time and soot produced. The Jiko Stove business will produce the stoves from locally sourced materials, before selling them to the local villagers. 

Technopreneurship

This project is a newly established social enterprise that aims to inspire Year 9 students in Science and Business, while also providing students of similar age group have access to quality education. This year, we have impacted 56 students in 2 schools in London, and have improve the lives of 5 Kenyan students who previously, do not have access to education.

London Homelessness Project

This new project focuses on the homeless people in central London. It is an issue that is difficult to address successfully, mostly because of how complex the roots and nature of the problem is. In London alone, the number of people ‘sleeping rough’ is around 8,000 – this is more than double the number from five years ago. 

In most cases, these people have faced serious life events that disrupted employment and income. The problem then becomes breaking the cycle of unemployment and poverty, however after an estimated 3 weeks of sleeping rough, people find it increasingly difficult to return to everyday life. 

Our project aims to provide a stepping stone for people to find a way back to employment.

Jeremy Tan, Chair of CAG Enactus said "The team had an invaluable experience pitching at Amazon HQ for the first time to a panel of 10 judges from IHG, Amazon and Centrica. Amazon was very welcoming to the team and we had the opportunity to have breakfast and network with the judges before the presentation begin".

He went on to say that "The feedback from the judges is that the presentation content was good and they really liked our Kenya Jiko Stoves project and Technopreneurship project, but we can still improve on conveying the message to be more compelling."

The group successfully made it onto the national competition opening round on 10th April.

For more information or to keep up with CAG Enactus and their activities, visit their page here.