Ignite students

Students from Cardiff University, Cardiff Metropolitan University and the University of South Wales have raised more than £1,900 in less than 24 hours for Llamau, a charity that works with women and young people from difficult backgrounds.

The teams raised the money as part of Ignite, a four day business boot camp and enterprise challenge competition run collaboratively with Cardiff University Enterprise.

The first two days of Ignite were an intensive business boot camp that focused on hands-on learning. This included building furniture out of balloons, engaging in drama workshops and designing new yoghurt pots. Odd as it sounds, this helped the students build on the teamwork, leadership and public speaking skills they would need to pitch for a panel of Dragons to secure funding for their fundraising ideas.

The Dragons had £1000 in a pot, and the students had to present a clear and cohesive plan on how they would turn a profit in under 24 hours. Consisting of three successful Cardiff-based entrepreneurs, the Dragons tested the student's skills. In the first round of pitching not all the teams secured funding, but after being asked to re-pitch, every team was awarded some funding.

Once students had the cash, the 24 hour challenge commenced. From Saturday to Sunday, the teams used a variety of different ideas that included, dressing up like superheroes, selling chocolates and using Photoshop to edit social media photos to earn donations. The rules were strict and students had to be enterprising in their fundraising tactic, and were not allowed to simply ask for donations. They had to earn donations through offering a product or a service. They used their 24 hours wisely and the most successful team turned a £620 profit, earning the team first place and gold medals.

The students were extremely happy with the way the programme. Law student, Amy Lai, commented: "Ignite was really fun and engaging. I was a little tired towards the end, but all the activity made me feel excited and enthusiastic about the challenge. I also met some amazing people who I would love to work with in the future."

The overall aim of Ignite was to offer students the chance to build on their employability skills out of a lecture theatre. Having successfully worked as teams and learned the basics of business, every student who participated said they would highly recommend the programme to other students, and were very happy to support such a worthy cause.

Visit Cardiff University Enterprise to get involved in similar events and competitions coming up this spring.