5th & 6th class students from CBS Synge Street, Dublin 8 were invited to Mercer to take part in our Dragons’ Den event on 14th June 2017. The event was designed to encourage students to learn entrepreneurial skills and to design a business plan focusing on innovation and enterprise.
The students met eight warm and friendly mentors from Mercer – Ged Quinn, Sheena Frost, Marian McCabe, John Mercer, Sinead Twohig, Lorraine Farrell, John Joe McArdle and Sarah Doody – who helped the students prepare their business plans and gave them advise on how to pitch their ideas to the ‘Dragons’ – Martine Ferland, Tom Geraghty and Stephen O’Driscoll. This resulted in the students receiving investment for their product / service ideas and each group received one of the following awards – Best Team Work, Best Presentation, Best Advertising/Marketing Plan and Most Innovative Idea.
Prior to the Dragons’ Den event four Mercer volunteers assisted the students in their classroom where they came up with their product or service ideas and discussed the 4 P’s of marketing that fed into their overall business plan.
Julio Portalatin, President & CEO at Mercer, attended this event and was extremely impressed with the students’ ideas and all the hard work they put into their business plans.
The students loved their visit to a local business and they were extremely thankful to be given the opportunity to be involved in such an exciting event!