Current Students and Staff

// University News

19 Dec 2014

Loughborough is named High Impact Host

The University and Loughborough Students' Union have won a place amongst Global Entrepreneurship Week’s High Impact Hosts in recognition of the range and reach of their enterprising activities during November.

Global Entrepreneurship Week – hosted by Youth Business International – is the world’s largest celebration of innovation and enterprise.

Since its launch in 2008, the number of participants has rapidly grown. Now, three million delegates from more than 140 countries take part each year in a range of local, national and global events and activities.

Loughborough’s contribution to the week of events (17–23 November) engaged student participants not only on campus but from across the globe.

The Pitch challenged BTEC business students from Loughborough College to put together a business outline and pitch their idea to a panel of judges – all in just 90 minutes.

Fempowerment – a collaborative venture bringing together the LSU Women’s Network, Asian Society, Nigerian Society, LGBT society and Ethnic Minority Network – welcomed three inspiring guest speakers – award-winning Bollywood designer Arinder Bhullar; Dr Carmen Torres-Sanchez, recently elected to the Council of the Confederation of Junior Enterprises; and Dr Julie Hollland, Director of the Glendonbrook Centre for Enterprise Education – who provided delegates with the chance to discuss a range of issues affecting women in business.

The 24-hour Social Storm hackathon brought together more than 100 students from eight universities in five countries to address issues raised by the UN’s development goal of achieving universal primary education for every child.

Divided into 20 international teams, participants developed creative sustainable solutions to the barriers to education. The winning team – GEMS (Global Educational Military Software) – developed an inexpensive online tool to facilitate teacher-student communication.

Student and Graduate Enterprise Manager Marina Pickles sums up the week’s success: “Everyone worked really hard to pull together a truly inspiring range of events that participants really got a lot out of. My thanks go to everyone who contributed to our being named Global Entrepreneurship Week High Impact Hosts.”

To find out more about how you can get involved in the various enterprising activities across campus, please visit the Student and Graduate Enterprise website or drop into The Enterprise Hub in the Students’ Union.