Gazelle entrepreneurs Priya Lakhani, founder of Masala Masala and SOCO, and Ben Ramsden, founder of Pants to Poverty, were full of praise for the StartUp Lounge after experiencing City College Norwich’s inspiring new facility for developing students’ entrepreneurial skills.
Speaking at the official launch of the StartUp Lounge on Friday 3rd February, Ms Lakhani, who left behind a career in law to become an entrepreneur and set up fresh Indian sauce company Masala Masala, said:
“I am actually quite overwhelmed at this whole space, I was not expecting this at all, I think it’s absolutely incredible.”
“If you have an idea already, if you have a venture that you want to pursue, this is an ideal space to come to, to come and develop that idea.”
Ms Lakhani added that the StartUp Lounge also has plenty to offer career-minded students who want to stand out and succeed as employees:
“In this day and age and in this current climate your employer, generally an entrepreneur, will be looking for something else in you, they’ll be looking for employees with an edge. That edge might be whether they’re looking for somebody who is more creative, more innovative, who is more proactive and who can think outside the box. Those qualities are what I call an entrepreneurial mind-set.”
Fellow Gazelle entrepreneur, Ben Ramsden, founder of Pants to Poverty, one of the leading ethical and sustainable fashion brands, said:
“To be an entrepreneur gives you a lot of freedom and it helps you to look at the world in a totally different way, and the more that young people can get involved in this type of thing the better.”
Mr Ramsden highlighted the need for entrepreneurial skills in a global economy, saying “The world has changed and places like this help us change with it.”
Mr Ramsden said that it was an “incredible honour” to be asked to be a Gazelle entrepreneur, and concluded by saying: “This is just the beginning, there’s an entrepreneurial evolution that’s starting to happen and I’m delighted to be part of it.”
Dick Palmer, Principal, City College Norwich, stressed the hand-on nature of the experience that students will gain through the StartUp Lounge:
“We want the StartUp Lounge to be an inspirational place for our students, a place where they really can do different. And I do mean “do”. This is not a space to read about enterprise. We’re not going to be doing MBAs in entrepreneurial thinking. It’s a space to create enterprise, an experiential space for our students to actually experience what’s involved in starting up a business.”
“Next year we want all of our 14,000 students to access the StartUp Lounge and we’ve already had almost a thousand come through since we opened in the first week of January, and we’ve got six fantastic business ideas from our students that we’re already working on.”
Gazelle is an exciting new movement in further education, bringing together leaders from the private and public sectors with the ambition of transforming the sector through entrepreneurship. Gazelle is working with some of Britain’s most inspirational entrepreneurs to ensure that students are equipped with an ambitious, can-do attitude and prepared for success in employment in today’s economic climate.
Gazelle has been created by Generator Enterprises, a company founded by five college principals, including Dick Palmer, Principal and CEO of City College Norwich and Chairman of Generator Enterprises. Generator Enterprises is working on a blueprint for an Entrepreneurial College of which the StartUp Lounge will form a key part.
Pictured: Ben Ramsden speaking at the launch of the StartUp Lounge (PICTURE: Terrez Price, ND Photography student)
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