Mayor’s Entrepreneur 2022: Meet the interns at the heart of the competition

With the new year comes new intentions, if those include kickstarting your future as an entrepreneur or realising a business idea then you should attend the upcoming workshops for The Mayor’s Entrepreneur Competition.

Established in 2012, The Mayor’s Entrepreneur Competition supports London based students to share viable, sustainable business ideas that aim to make the city ‘cleaner, greener and ready for the future.’ You can enter individually or as part of a group and will receive support in developing your entrepreneurial skills through mentoring and workshops with business experts. Ideas are pitched ‘Dragon’s Den’ style at City Hall with five awards of £20,000 available to winners. The award categories are Creative, Environment, Health, Tech, and Social Enterprise.

Joining the competition’s programme is the perfect way to meet likeminded people, grow peer networks and attend socials. Throughout January, you can tap into support and attend upcoming workshops on uncovering problems and ideation and customer development, both bookable via Eventbrite. To learn more about the competition and internship programme we spoke to LCF students who are currently interns for the Mayor’s Entrepreneur Delivery Team - Emily Freund, MSc Strategic Fashion Management student and Gabby Carruthers, MA Fashion Entrepreneurship and Innovation student. Gabby said of the experience:

We were able to go to city hall on the first day which was really exciting, we attended workshops all day to meet everyone and understand more about the role. The experience has been really great so far! Things are a little different working virtually, but we have weekly check-ins with our mini project groups to make sure everyone is happy with how things are progressing.

Over the autumn term 2021 and spring term 2022, they have been tasked with promoting the competition with local networks at LCF and UAL. 30 interns were selected from universities across London, Emily and Gabby will be working as part of the delivery team for 6 months. Emily talked to us about how the opportunity was helping to build her personal employability skills as well:

Working within the social media sector of this programme is interesting as I’ve worked with social media marketing before but instead of selling a product, I’ve gained a unique skill of how to market a programme and mobilise the audience to attend workshops. I’ve really enjoyed connecting with UAL students from other colleges!

The application deadline for the Mayor's Entrepreneur Competition is Sunday 13 March 2022. LCF encourages all interested students to apply. Join LCF’s past winner Kae Katz and be London’s next creative entrepreneur!

• Find out more about MSc Strategic Fashion Management and MA Fashion Entrepreneurship and Innovation
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