Year 13 student David Loye was selected to participate an an innovation competition in the Ulster Hall recently.  David writes below about his experience as a budding entrepreneur.

Generation Innovation was an eventful night and showed young entrepreneurs that it is possible to become successful even in today’s economy.

From Start to finish the night was a success. An event such as talking to the co-founder of Twitter in Florida to the competition that they hosted it was a powerful evening. As expected from the moment the night of ambition began it had potential to be a big success.

We were set a challenge in groups to invent an app idea that would make money and that would be relevant to young people of our age. Our idea of a bartering system unexpectedly won and we got given a dongle multimedia player which is being put to good use. Getting to know the mentors that we where each assigned to, was a brilliant experience it showed that it wasn’t all just on paper that people actually do become successful.

Our own mentor has a company which converted money or currency won in games to actual prizes, he was based in Ireland and New York. What impressed me was all the entrepreneurs who all had there own company, some that where making millions. Generation Innovation were very generous in giving out items, every single person got a bag with books and stationery that we might need.

In conclusion the night itself was a great learning experience. Talking to all the people and finding out the jobs that they do really helped me decide and rethink what I am going to do with my career.