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Burst takes Young Enterprise with ‘no-ties’ win

Young Enterprise Finals 21-06-18 (Photos Johnny Bugeja ) eight teams of students competing to represent Gibraltar at the Young Enterprise finals in London

Young Enterprise team ‘Burst’ will represent Gibraltar at the London final with their ‘no-ties’ shoe product after winning the local leg of the competition.

The team beamed as they picked up their award at the final of the 10th Gibraltar Young Enterprise competition.

The win was a “double whammy” for the team who also won the Sales and Marketing prize.

“I don’t think there are any words to describe how I am feeling right now,” said Burst Managing Director Mathew Porter just moments after his team clinched the win.

“I am so proud of everyone in my team they have been incredible. It has been a lot of hard work and very challenging.”

The ‘no-ties’ are an alternative to shoe laces that turns shoes into slip-ons without the need to tie a shoe lace.

Over the past academic year Burst have sold 1,000 sets of their ‘no-ties’ to gyms and have secured a £6,000 deal for 3,000 laces with the Island Games.

This means the team secured a profit of £6,999 and a revenue of £10,535.

Chairman of the Young Enterprise Carlos Garcia joked in his opening speech that this year’s teams have seen a tremendous profit with some “very rich” young entrepreneurs.

The Minister for Education, Dr John Cortes, commended the students and highlighted the Government’s focus on vocational studies.

“This is what it is all about this is our future, and with Gibraltar going through Brexit it is the young people who give all of us huge confidence in how responded to all these challenges and excelled,” Dr Cortes said.

He added the Young Enterprise is part of the “education revolution” in Gibraltar that has tapped into the “incredible potential” of the local youth.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary introduced a new prize for the Journey and removed the second prize for Runner-Up.

“The reason we have scrapped the second prize is that we think everyone is a second prize winner,” Mr Garcia said at the final.

“You have all delivered excellence to be here.”

He added Prior Park School will be joined the Young Enterprise as from next year.

The prize for the best ‘Journey’ in the competition was awarded to Imperium who also won an award for Financial Management.

Young Enterprise Finals 21-06-18

The Journey prize was sponsored by the Bland Group International, who are the Young Enterprise’s main sponsor and over the years have given hundreds of thousands of pounds to this initiative.

The award for Best Presentation was presented to EcoVibe who also won the Innovation and Production prize.

Young Enterprise Finals 21-06-18

This year eight teams vied for the chance to take part in the UK finals including teams EcoStart, Ecotivity, Versatile and WeeGo.

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