Student fundraising challenge for Ty Hafan

Cardiff University students have taken part in a 24 hour fundraising challenge to raise money for local children's hospice Ty Hafan.

The challenge took place along with students from Cardiff Metropolitan University; University of Wales, Newport and University of Glamorgan as part of Ignite – a four day programme organised by the Universities involved to develop students' entrepreneurial skills.

The money was raised by a Dragon's Den style task where students were given the opportunity to pitch their fundraising ideas. The 'Dragons' were four successful business professionals: Abi Carter, a local entrepreneur and forensic scientist; Russell Britton, director of a local creative agency; Mark Hooper, owner of the co-working community Indycube and Carmel Barry, Business Starts Manager for the Centre for Business.

Any investment from the Dragons was used to raise as much money as possible for Ty Hafan during a 24 hour period at the end of February. Students were able to work on their fundraising ideas by drawing on the creativity, innovation and initiative skills they had gained during the Ignite workshops and presentations. The enterprising students raised money by liaising with local companies to sell branded doughnuts and pizza slices outside nightclubs and halls of residence, as well as organising raffles, a fun run and fancy dress bucket collections.

Elena Florea, an undergraduate student at Cardiff Business School who took part in Ignite said: "I learned many things during Ignite 2013 but most importantly Ignite taught me to believe in myself and to recognise and articulate the skills I already have whilst developing new ones."

Dr Catherine Bushell, Enterprise Manager at Cardiff University Enterprise said: "Ignite is all about taking students out of their comfort zone and enabling them to develop their enterprise skills, commercial awareness and innovative thinking. Ignite 2013 was once again a fantastic event, thanks to the enthusiasm and motivation of the students who were willing to try out new challenges, and had the confidence to put their new skills into practice, trying out their ideas to raise funds for Ty Hafen. "

The programme, which is funded by the Welsh Government's Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy Action Plan 2010-15, brought together students from each of the universities for a number of interactive workshops and guest presentations from local entrepreneurs.