“Winner of the UK’s most prestigious Social Enterprise Award, Will Akerman proposes that now is the moment for employers to actively shape the student careers and skills landscape. William will briefly explain how government careers provision has been all but obliterated, and with unaffordable university fees leading to a shift toward apprenticeships, many students are left stranded. Who or what will fill the void. As MD of MyKindaCrowd, William believes that companies can bridge-the-gap and benefit commercially by engaging with future recruits.”

Tickets are £15 and please book as early as possible by sending a quick email to admin.oxfordshire@iod.net.

The new small business finance app

The application, part of the SmallBusiness Finance series of guides, features case studies of businesses that successfully achieved a grant, along with a list of the 118 assistance schemes available to those in business and starting up.

Contributor Clive Lewis, head of SME issues at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, says that although grants can seem hard to come by, there is help out there – but securing the finance is not easy.

He adds, ‘Some people regard grants as easy money or ‘a bit of bunce’ and sometimes a grant can be the difference between success and failure. But they do not come without strings.’

The guide will clarify what these ‘strings’ are from those with first-hand experience of receiving monetary help.

The guide costs only £2.49 and is available to download now for your iPad or iPhone. Click here to download.

Don’t have an iPhone or iPad? No problem! The guide is also available to order in PDF format. Click here to download in PDF format.

The SmallBusiness Finance App is free for iPhone and iPad users to download and will be updated throughout the year with new guides.

For students from China, EU and the UK (UK nationals)
The workshop has been rescheduled and will now take place at Oxford Brookes in May 2012 and is organised by Oxford Brookes International in conjunction with Santander and Bank of China.

As a participant you will move your understanding beyond models and theories by investigation leadership from the perspective of local leaders. You will meet current leaders across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors who will share the challenges they are facing.

The course will be free of charge and we will also provide some refreshments.

More information about the workshop

Please send your application to studyabroad@brookes.ac.uk by Friday 20 April 2012.

Are You The Next Big Thing In Technology? £150k says you are!

MyKindaCrowd is partnering with Cisco to help discover and support the future generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. Come along to The MyKindaCrowd live launch on March 26th and you could win £150k worth of investment to start your own business. Join the challenge and you could win exclusive mentoring and an invitation to The Cisco Networking Event!!

Plus:- If you are one of the lucky 50 students who come along to the workshop you will automatically be entered in for a chance to win an I-Pad 2 just for taking part in an exclusive Brookes Entrepreneurs Challenge!

As Senior Vice President of AOL Europe, Kate Burns is responsible for setting strategy and overseeing the day-to-day operations of AOL’s European business. This includes working with leading agencies and advertisers to create brand experiences that take advantage of AOL’s premium content and substantial worldwide audience. Burns is also responsible for scaling AOL’s advertising products and third-party publisher network, Advertising.com, and ensuring AOL offers advertisers unique consumer insights to help them better understand how consumers engage with their businesses.

With more than a decade’s experience launching and leading several businesses to success, AOL appointed Burns as head of its European Sales in July 2009, reporting to Jeff Levick, President, Global Advertising and Strategy. She was previously Vice President and Managing Director, Europe, of AOL’s social media company, Bebo.

Burns joined Bebo in July 2008. Prior to that she was Managing Director of Dailymotion UK, where she was responsible for growing its audience, building an advertising sales operation and creating commercial partnerships. In 2001, Burns joined Google as Director, UK, Ireland and Benelux, notably as its first employee outside the U.S., where she helped lead Google from infancy to strong international success. Her online and media credentials also include senior revenue positions at Altavista and Doubleclick, as well as Ziff Davis/Yahoo and News International.

Burns is a regular guest across Europe at key speaker platforms discussing topics spanning current and future trends in the media, marketing and advertising landscape.

Kate lives in Tunbridge Wells Kent, with her husband Steve, two young children Josie and Logan. She’s a keen horse-rider and enthusiastic part time property developer.

To register for the event please click here.

Jim spends most of his time working on startup ideas and investing. His book, ‘Wake Up!’ was published in 2005, with the second book “10 Investments for the Ten Years Ahead” published in 2008. Jim lives in the Isle of Man, Brussels, and Ibiza, and is an honorary fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.

He has just finished his new book, Cracking the Code, which will be published in April by Wiley…the theme of the book is that the bio pharma industry represents the greatest single opportunity in the world today as computing power catches up with human intelligence and overtakes it; this allows for rapid interpretation of genomic reads allowing for personalised medicine to become a genuine reality…as a result life expectancy is set to expand dramatically, leading to political and demographic change.

This event will be held on Tuesday, February 21st, in room Gipsy Lane Main Lecture Theatre (CMLT) between 6pm – 7pm, with a drinks reception in the foyer between 7pm – 8pm. If you would like to attend the event, please register by clicking here.

From working in the Youth Sector aged 13, to now being Founder & Director of InspirEngage International, Melody has reached over a million young people in over 100 countries.

Melody graduated from Oxford Brookes in 2006 with an honours degree in Law. In 2009 she founded InspirEngage International, aiming to improve the lives of children and young people through Skills Development Bootcamps. She has worked with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former American Vice-President, Al Gore.

Last year, Melody was one of the candidates in BBC 1’s ‘The Apprentice’, and was the first ever Social Entrepreneur to have got onto the show with Lord Sugar describing her as “a woman of exceptional ability”.

Melody will be talking about the story of InspirEngage Interational and its work, and how we can create impact in whatever our chosen field to be able to change the world!

The event takes place on Wednesday, April 25th, in the Main Lecture Theatre, Clerici, Headington Campus, between 6pm – 7pm. This event is open to all at Oxford Brookes, so you must register ASAP if you wish to attend via the link below:

http ://www . brookes . ac . uk/about/events/e-items/Alumni_Lecture12

Another semester has come and gone and BE have brought you some exciting events with some very interesting guest speakers. BE started off the semester with a very successful drinks social and finished off the semester with a fabulous speech from the Chairman and founder of Cobra Beer, Lord Bilimoria.

Event 1 – Social Drinks
Brookes Entrepreneurs had their first social drinks of the year on Tuesday 4th October from 5 – 6.30pm at Malikas on Cowley road. The event was a great opportunity to meet the committee; other members both new and old and all members were allowed to treat themselves to free drink and curry. The event was extremely successful as 80 members turned up to the event.

Event 2 – Guest Speaker Event Q&A
On November 14 Brookes Entrepreneurs held an informal speaking event hosted by Graeme Fry, which was followed by a Q&A session. The event was held at Clems from 6.30pm – 8.30pm. This event was very interesting for anyone interested in entrepreneurship. Following Graeme’s speech, he held a Q&A session which was BE members chance to speak with Graeme on a less formal level. We also invited a number of other Oxford based entrepreneurs to the event for our members to get a true understanding of what it’s like to be an entrepreneur today.

Event 3 – Kim Hills Spedding – How to write a business plan workshop
On Wednesday 23rd November
 at 5pm – 7pm
 Kim Hills Spedding gave a workshop on how to write a business plan. The event was a great opportunity to learn the basics of writing a business plan and was also an opportunity to buy Kim’s book (The really practical guide to running a business) at a discounted price.

Event 4 – Lord Karan Bilimoria
Our first formal guest speaker event was held on Tuesday 29th November. Lord Bilimoria, founder of Cobra Beer gave a very excited speech on his experience as an entrepreneur and the highs and lows of running a business. The event was held at 6.00pm in the Willow Building followed by drinks in the Law Building.

We are looking forward to seeing you all at our events in 2012 and remember if you have any questions you can contact the committee at brookes.entrepreneurs@gmail.com.

Like some help to develop your idea for reality?

The university is holding a competition for the best business plan for a business idea that you really want to start or develop, with £1000 prize for the post graduate and undergraduate entries.

The winners will be given additional support and guidance about how they might put their plan into action and to improve their plans. The best plans may also be entered into other national business plan competitions such as the Santander Business Plan competition held in 2011 where the winners won up to £20,000 to help turn their idea into reality.

The individual or team winning the Oxford Brookes` prizes will receive £1000 together with high-level mentoring to enhance their chances of winning a national competition.

A condition of receiving the £1000 prizes is that the winners will be expected to put some time into developing their plan to raise it to a nationally competitive standard with the guidance of the mentor, The next two runners-up in each category will receive £500 each.

There are no specific guidelines for the format of the entry but the judges will pay attention to the originality of the idea and the vision; the analysis of the market and the competition; the operational, delivery and management plans and the projected financial performance.

The more convincing and credible the plan, the more likely it is to win the Oxford Brookes prize!! Creativity in presenting the plan to capture the imagination of the judges will also be important. Plans should also demonstrate the passion to actually make the business happen if possible.

The most promising undergraduate and postgraduate plans (1 of each) will be given in-depth support and mentoring to refine the plan to submit to national competitions.

The closing date for the competition is Wednesday 29th February 2012. Your business plan should be submitted to Emily Brown emily.brown@brookes.ac.uk. The decision of the judges chaired by the Director of Research and Business Development will be final.

You must indicate if you are an undergraduate or postgraduate entry for the first stage. You must also still be studying at the University to be eligible to enter.

The plan must be your own work or the work of your team.

Date: Thursday, 1st December
Time: 7-8pm, followed by a drinks reception
Venue: Said Business School, Lecture Theatre 4

Join Oxford Entrepreneurs for the much anticipated launch of TATA Idea Idol 2012! This is your chance to win up to £10,000 in cash and prizes for your business idea. The launch will be at the Said Business School on Thursday (1st December) where you will have the opportunity to hear more about the details of the competition and listen to three extraordinary speakers.

Stuart Miller (co-founder and CEO of ByBox)

Stuart grew ByBox from a start-up to a turnover of £35 million in nine years. In October 2007, ByBox was ranked the fastest growing technology company in the UK, as measured by Deloitte’s Fast50 league of leading companies over five years. Today, ByBox has the World’s largest network of dropboxes and the UK’s leading field service supply chain solution.

Benjamin Barokas (current President and co-founder of AdMeld)

AdMeld is an online “sell side” platform that represents online publishers and helps maximise revenue from their unsold inventory. Their clients include Fox News, Discovery, Answers, Accuweather, and – in the UK – the Guardian, National Rail, and Haymarket Publishing. The company was bought recently by Google for $400 million.

Will Chadwick (Vice President, TATA Interactive Systems).

Will spent the first 11 years of his career in a big corporate environment with Whitbread. He then set up an e-business called Pubcentre.com which was the first business launched in the UK to provide online services to the pub industry – the business was sold to eSkye Solutions in 2001. Following this, Will joined a start-up called Creative Learning Media for 8 years which he helped grow from 7 employees to 200.

So join us for what promises to be an inspiring evening and learn how to win up to £10,000 in cash and prizes!

For registration please visit: http ://groupspaces.com/oxfordentrepreneurs/item/217325