Tasty idea takes home prize in Lions Den competition

Two sweet-toothed students asked business experts to put their money where their mouth is when they took part in a Dragons' Den-style contest at Highbury College Portsmouth.

Named 'Lions' Den' as a hat-tip to its television inspiration, the College-wide competition saw Vivian Ko and Elise Au impress the judging panel with their plan for a delicious doughnut-making business called 'Doughnuts Galore'.

Given just ten minutes to pitch their proposals, competitors were then grilled by judges Peter Reed-Forrester of Community UK, part of Digital Britain, Douglas Wood of Buddy's Hyrdrotherapy Centre and Highbury College accountant Matt Ellcome.

With a £400 first prize on the table, Elise took the floor to present the plan for the two, fighting off competition from five other aspiring entrepreneurs whose ideas included a Kayak renting company and a Dance and Yoga club.

Peter Reed-Forrester, in his role as a 'lion' for the day, said: "For me, this is all about encouragement and there was certainly some enthusiasm here today which was nice to see.

"It was difficult to choose between two of them but we thought the winners' was a really good idea which potentially could achieve a lot."

Fellow panel member Douglas Wood said: "Elise showed passion and knew what she was talking about."

Elise, 18, who studies on an Access to Higher Education course at the College along with Vivian, said: "It was quite scary, actually it was very scary, standing in front of all those people and talking about our business plan. This was our assignment so we had to do it properly. It took a month or more to finish it."

Unfortunately Vivian was taken ill on the day so Elise accepted the prize on behalf of them both.

She said: "I loved this idea from Vivian. We won this together."

A runner-up prize of £100 was awarded to construction student Sarah-Jane Butt for her mobile business idea of teaching IT to pensioners.

For more news and events from Highbury College Portsmouth please visit www.highbury.ac.uk.

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