Accelerator, London’s Business Incubator, will be running a 2-day specialised boot camp for Digital Entrepreneurs on Thursday 31st May and Friday 1st June. The 2-day boot camp will be practitioner led by some of the key players in the heart of the Silicon Roundabout/Tech City start up scene, providing not only excellent training but also key industry contacts.

The Accelerator Business Incubator houses 25 digital businesses. We immerse the business owners in a digital community with unrivalled business expertise. We’ve helped to create 5 millionaires in the last 3 years and now we’ve condensed all our knowledge in to a 2-day Accelerator boot camp to kick start new digital ventures.

We’ve assembled a great team of entrepreneurs to focus on your businesses and challenge you to develop, improve and create a clear road map for execution and you will create a network of contacts to help you overcome every challenge that lies ahead.

The Business Boot Camp is open to 30 Digital Entrepreneurs all in the early stages of setting up their venture. The boot camp includes pre-course learnings and tasks to establish a base knowledge level and to generate materials for case studies to be used in the course.

The sessions will be based around your ideas and will have a focus on peer to peer learning. Many sessions will use live case study techniques using your business development issues to draw out learnings for other participants and adding real value to your business.

Confirmed Speakers

• Richard Celm, Manager Accelerator
• James Swanston, Founder Carbon Voyage
• Tom Jeffs, Founder and CTO Lucidica

Pricing

General Tickets – £195 (early bird discount (£150) avialable until May 6, contact studententerprise@londonmet.ac.uk to recieve discount code)

London Met Students- Free (students must contact studententerprise@londonmet.ac.uk to recieve their discount code)

Students (Other Universities) – £50 (students must contact studententerprise@londonmet.ac.uk to recieve their discount code)

Book your tickets at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/3230397205

On March 8^th, in Google’s London headquarters, the Young Master Awards, which were planned by Entrepreneur Country and Google UK, took place.  There were more than 2000 nominations across the six categories involved in the event.  Uwe Dreissigacker and his company, Invoiceberry were able to win the Best Business Pitch Presentation Award.  Candidates for the award had to present their business pitch to BBC Online Dragon Julie Meyer (pictured here giving Uwe his award) in order to demonstrate their speaking ability and overall presentational skills.  Out of the five candidates, Uwe was able to especially impress the judges with the sheer simplicity of Invoiceberry.

Upon receiving the award, Uwe Dreissigacker said: “It is fantastic that Entrepreneur Country encourages so many people to start their businesses and thus help the economy to get out of the recession. At the end of the day the country can only work with small businesses creating employment, innovation and wealth. I am very happy that Invoiceberry won the award as there is a blatant need for our online invoicing software in today’s small businesses with cash flow management being the most critical success factor.”  The future seems bright for the young entrepreneur and his business moving forward.

Learn more about Invoiceberry here: http://www.invoiceberry.com

Parisa Louie, London Met graduate, commented “I found the boot camp extremely useful. In such short time, we were provided with so much information and resources that would otherwise have taken weeks or even months to achieve at the same level”.

The London Met students were joined by start-up business from the London-wide community, together representing the next wave of London’s innovative entrepreneurial talent.

According to Parisa, the variety of peers and professional speakers to network with were an excellent resource of knowledge and experience, who she “would hopefully arrange meetings with in the near future for additional support”.

Workshops on digital business models and marketing essentials were followed by more advanced masterclass sessions covering team planning, raising finance, and effective business networking. Eric van der Kleij, chief executive of the UK’s Tech City Investment Organisation, spoke to the delegates about the wealth of opportunities and benefits of launching a business in the Tech City area.

The Business Boot Camp for Digital Entrepreneurs was organised by Accelerator, London’s business incubator and part of London Metropolitan University, in collaboration with the university’s Student Enterprise Programme and the Innovate London project . All three organisers are based in the Tech City area (Shoreditch/Old Street/East London).

London Met’s Student Enterprise Programme has been designed to offer current students and alumni with entrepreneurial ideas the guidance and support they really need in starting up their businesses. The programme runs many events and workshops which help boost entrepreneurial skills and knowledge.

To find out more about joining London Met’s Student Enterprise, contact Matthew Connelly – m.connelly@londonmet.ac.uk

Student and Alumni entrepreneurs in action at the Digital Boot Camp at Accelerator.

Three of the top London Met Students currently running their businesses with help from Accelerator, London Met’s Business Incubator, battled it out this month against students from 16 other London-based Universities to gain the title of Venture Catalyst Champion and receive £3000 towards their business.

Sujit Nair, Uwe Dreissigacker and Nick Gardiner all entered the Venture Catalyst competition hosted by FIG (Find Invest Grow) in partnership with KEEN (The Knowledge East Enterprise Network) and West Focus Network, which encourages students from 16 participating universities to submit their business ideas for the ultimate Pitching Competition. The 12 finalists have been blogging about their businesses and drumming up interest via facebook and other social media sites since December 2010. They all received support from their local mentors and attended a business bootcamp to perfect their pitch, all in preparation for the Regional Finals held at Accelerator on 19 May 2011.

The 12 finalists were split into two groups and pitched first to a separate panel of judges throughout the afternoon. The evening then turned into the Live Pitch Event which saw the chosen final 6 pitch a second time to a live audience in order to gain all-important audience votes.

Two London Met graduates were chosen in the final 6. Sujit Nair with his business Dabblerr, a personalized education platform and Nick Gardiner with Fit for Sport, bespoke CPD courses for sport therapy professionals. Along with students from Royal Holloway, University of East London and London Southbank University, they pitched to a panel of 4 Investors and a packed audience at Accelerator in the heart of Silicon Roundabout.

After all the pitches had been heard and contestants endured grueling questions, the judges were sent off the deliberate their ideas and the audience votes were collected. The points were combined from all judges and audience voting and the final three were announced.

The winners who won £3000 plus a year’s virtual incubation at the Accelerator were London Southbank students Hayley Smith and David Buckley with their business Such & Such, who design aiding equipment for disabled people.

Final 6

Winners Such & Such with the Judges

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, called on budding entrepreneurs to boost their chances of success by signing up for a series of tailor-made ‘Business Bootcamps’ including the Digital Bootcamp run by Accelerator, London Metropolitan University’s Business Incubator.

The Bootcamps were formally launched last Friday 13 May by The Mayor at the British Library’s Business and IP Centre where he met with seasoned entrepreneurs who will be involved in delivering the Business Bootcamps including London Met’s Matthew Connelly, Student Enterprise Development Manager.

Accelerator won their bid for a share in the £275,000 of funding from the Royal Bank of Scotland and £135,000 from the Open Innovation EU’s Interreg scheme which was developed to give 1,000 new entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop the key skills they need to build successful businesses.

Accelerator’s Business Bootcamp for Digital Entrepreneurs will be taking place on 26/27 May and is practitioner led by some of the key players in the heart of Silicon Roundabout and Tech City start up scene. The bootcamp will not only provide excellent training but also key industry contacts within the digital field.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said the Accelerator programme was “Fantastic!” and further spoke of the business bootcamps: “London is brimming with entrepreneurial spirit across a huge range of sectors, from fashion to finance, science to technology, hospitality and the arts. New enterprising start-ups are going to be ever more important to our city’s prosperity and as we continue to creep out of recession we must do all we can to support those with the brightest ideas. These brilliant bootcamps will help budding entrepreneurs to get the inside track from the experts on how to start and grow successful, thriving companies.”

Rachel Elnaugh, former Dragon and previous speaker on the London Met’s Student Enterprise Programme, said: “If you want to be the best in business you need the right training. One of the best ways of excelling in business is to gain as much insider knowledge as you can and that is why I’m supporting these Business Bootcamps. If you want to increase your knowledge and your profits then I urge you not to miss out.”

Matthew Connelly, Student Enterprise Development Manager said: “Bootcamps have provided an amazing experience for our students and graduates in the past and have been a springboard to success for a number of our graduate entrepreneurs. It is fantastic to have the support of the Mayor of London, Capital Enterprise and RBS to continue them.”

The Accelerator Business Bootcamp for Digital Entrepreneurs has an amazing line up of speakers which include Julie Meyer CEO Ariadne Capital and online Dragons’ Den presenter, Bill Morrow founder of Angel’s Den and David Bozward Director of Flying Start.

To view the full schedule and details on how to book, go to our events page here.

David has over 20 years entrepreneurial business experience, and provides thought provoking, insightful and instantly usable techniques for use in everyone’s business during his workshops and personal development seminars.

In the last two years he has worked with over 20,000 people looking to start a business, developing their techniques, entrepreneurial mindset and the increasing motivation for starting and continuing their businesses. Thousands of these have started and are still making money and expanding their business during this recession.

David Bozward is a serial entrepreneur, motivation speaker, mentor and authority on small business growth and inspires start-ups across numerous sectors. He is an inspirational workshop speaker focusing on motivation, networking, pitching and sales generation. Everyone walks away motivated with new knowledge and skills which they can put to good use.

Author of “Make Your Passion A Success”, “The Motivated Entrepreneur” and “Why Be Enterprising”

When he founded Angels Den in 2007, he chucked out the rule book on Angel investment and was determined to make things happen for small businesses.

Bill is passionate that all businesses with a good idea and a sound business plan should be able to access finance to get off the ground. Angels Den is now one of the largest Angel networks in Europe and is expanding into Asia and America.

With an infectious passion for success and fun, Bill inspires his audiences with his determination to always push for more. He is a remarkable presenter who encourages all who hear him to share in his creative entrepreneurial spirit.

Julie Meyer is one of the leading champions for entrepreneurship in Europe. With over 20 years investment and advisory experience helping start-up businesses, she is the well known founder & CEO of Ariadne Capital, Managing Partner of the Ariadne Capital Entrepreneurs (ACE) Fund, founder of Entrepreneur Country, co-founder of First Tuesday, dragon on BBC’s Online Dragons Den and weekly columnist in London’s City AM.

Through these intertwining roles of entrepreneur, advisor, investor and industry commentator, Julie has set her mission to build a growth story for the UK and Europe. This passion and entrepreneurial flair is what has earned her awards as one of INSEAD’s Top 50 Alumni, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow and in the Wall Street Journal’s Top 30 Most Influential Women in Europe.

American by birth and European in spirit, Julie has added a flourishing media career to her business commitments, recently joining BBC’s Online Dragon’s Den. In addition to her weekly column for London’s City A.M. and regular contributions to Business Week, Computing, FT Digital Business, Spectator Business, Julie is also a regular industry commentator for the BBC and CNBC.

Julie is Chief Executive of Ariadne Capital, the investment and advisory firm she founded in August 2000. Ariadne backs entrepreneurs in the media (music, broadcast, publishing, advertising, gaming), mobile internet and communications, and internet sectors. Ariadne pioneered the model of “Entrepreneurs Backing Entrepreneurs” in 2000 in Europe as the new model of the financing of entrepreneurship. Fifty eight leading entrepreneurs have backed Julie and Ariadne Capital as Investor Members in the global partnership.

Most recently Julie founded Entrepreneur Country. Managed by Ariadne Capital, Entrepreneur Country is a dedicated community for leading and emerging entrepreneurs, investors, the media and corporate partners who service the start-up industry across the UK and Europe.

From 1998 to 1999, Julie was part of the team at NewMedia Investors, which became early stage investment firm Spark Ventures in October 1999. At NewMedia Investors, she led deals in key internet success stories like lastminute.com and WGSN. In 1998, she founded First Tuesday, the largest global network of entrepreneurs, which many credit for igniting the Internet generation in Europe. It was sold for $50million in cash in and shares in July 2000.

As a personal project, Julie is also currently setting up an association for dads and daughters.

Julie was asked to be the Spokesperson in early 2010 for the Barclays “Take One Small Step” business campaign as well as the Siemens Enterprise Communications “British Business Boost”. She is on the Advisory Board of NACUE, the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs

Tom Jeffs is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Lucidica, an IT support, training and consultancy firm for small business. Thomas Jeffs started out small in 1999 helping small businesses in London with their IT and computer support whilst he was studying at University College London.

Over the years, Tom has amassed an enormous amount of experience helping businesses with 1-50 staff: solve their IT problems; implement better technology; or learn how to use technology more effectively and productively.