Last year was the first year that Enterprise by Design went online for our finale. While we would’ve preferred to have our competition in person, our student teams, academic experts and business partners weathered the storm beautifully and now we are prepared for Enterprise by Design 2021, completely online!
For this year’s focus, our teams are looking at ways to build eco-sustainable businesses by coming up with ideas for local food enterprises in North Wales.
Read on in the blog below about what our next 10 weeks will be like at Enterprise by Design and how you can follow along during our journey!
What is Enterprise by Design?
If you’ve never heard about EBD, it’s a live 10 week project for interdisciplinary undergraduate teams from Bangor University — across business, arts, science and engineering (BASE) — to come together and create a business plan for a local company.
Pre-covid, we would have met in person every Thursday for ten weeks. Students would receive talks from academic experts, participate in group challenges and activities and give presentations on their ideas. This year we’re still doing all of that, but we’re meeting remotely on Zoom and using collaboration platforms such as Miro!
At the end of the 10 weeks, we have a live finale, where our students will give presentations and do a Q&A with judges about their idea. Teams who are in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places win cash prizes worth a total of £5000!
In the past, teams have designed apps, services, tourism experiences, sustainable product packaging for Halen Mon and DMM, and even a one of a kind anchored cruise ship for local companies such as Zip World and Rib Ride.
To check out previous years’ events, click here!
The Task
This year our teams are looking at ways to help the local food economy. Our teams will be developing proposals for new food enterprises in North Wales. These community-focused enterprises will help to maintain a healthy environment and increase the consumption of nutritious locally produced food.
The teams will need to research aspects of the food system, such as food waste, food production and the market, whilst trying to establish their own unique selling proposition that will help with economic regeneration and be financially viable.
Our students will be looking into the ways their ideas could benefit Wales economically, socially, technically and environmentally by looking at the ways local buying or seasonal foods could be encouraged more. One of the goals for our teams will be to explore how they can create a profit-seeking business with charitable goals that will ultimately benefit the local area.
Our 2021 Partners
This year we are teaming up with Ysbyty Gwynedd hospital, nonprofit organisation Growing for Change, and entrepreneur and farmer Emlyn Williams.
In a time when people’s immune systems are vulnerable, improving people’s overall quality of life by encouraging a healthy diet is a great extra way to help combat covid-19. Local hospital Ysbyty Gwynedd is interested in the ways that our teams could provide ideas to promote the consumption of healthy, nutritious rich foods that are affordable and available to those who might otherwise have to purchase cheaper, often unhealthier, foods.
Growing for Change is a salad growing social enterprise in North Wales which aims to provide “field to plate” food to the local area by providing produce to local shops, restaurants and cafes through seasonal salad bags. Our teams will learn a lot from the ways that Growing for Change operates, such as providing deliveries in plastic free packaging and being environmentally friendly by delivering it by bike!
Local entrepreneur Emlyn Williams has identified that care homes and hospitals would benefit greatly from the low bacterial loads of leafy greens grown in a sterile environment. He’s got a lot to teach our teams about performing due diligence, identifying weaknesses in a product, and starting projects with fundamental research. Emlyn is aiming to start a commercial farm in due course, using his innovative ideas.
Our business partners will be looking for ideas that can address food poverty, that promote improving the local diet, that provide opportunities for volunteers, and that help local food systems in an environmentally friendly way.
Thinking Globally, Acting Locally
The concept “thinking globally and acting locally” has been around for quite some time, but it has never been more pertinent than right now; what with the spread of the coronavirus and people being required to stay within their local area.
Acting locally is a great way to reduce food waste, provide employability, community support, help tackle homelessness and create volunteer opportunities in the local area. Our students will have to look at the ways food systems are handled in other parts of the world, as well as learning from our 2021 partners and researching the local area in order to understand how to adapt their ideas to best serve north Wales in the food industry.
Stay Tuned
Follow along with our blog and weekly videos to learn more about local food systems and see how our students are developing their ideas — check out our social media on Twitter and Instagram at EBD_Bangor!