Mr. Tom Hayes:

The student enterprise awards has been running for quite a number of years, and for quite a long time it was no more than a competition. It was maybe a rite of passage, a project or maybe part of an examination where one did something and submitted it.

One might have then gone off travelling, got a job or whatever the case may be. There has been a sea change in that respect in the past four or five years. There is now a much more serious intent among those involved in following through and establishing a business. Because of that, a number of them have gone on to be supported by the local enterprise offices and ourselves under various programmes and schemes such as the competitive feasibility fund, CFF, the competitive start fund, CSF and as high potential start-ups, HPSUs, in that some of them have got investment from ourselves.

One of the areas we focused on in that competition was to ensure that there was a cross-fertilisation of functional skills as opposed to just whether it was a male or female involved. One could have a good technical individual or a couple but they might not know how to put the proposition together from a business perspective in terms of its value, who would buy the product, how the money would be raised and how the business would be financed. It was a question of putting together the team and the ideal team is somebody who has an engineering or technical background and somebody who has a very strong commercial or business development background. If a team like that comes forward, whether its members are all male, all female, or a mix, there is better likelihood of them coming up with a better project. I have seen that from casual observation and I have been involved in this for the past four or five years. There is a very high level of female participation in those programmes.