The Winners of the Shell Business Challenge 2023 were the team who developed 'Willow the Walrus' a multifunctional toy and tray to keep children amused and adults happy. Their team was mentored by Otto Marples, a current parent who after a 25-year career in advertising, sold his business, and re-trained to be a boat builder. He's now set-up a business designing and building a range of sustainable electric timber motor yachts and boats. 

'I was very happy to offer my help to the business challenge. When the team picked a children's sledge I thought that it was a pretty obscure choice, but they all got behind the concept, were very creative in their thinking, and worked well as a team. Their presentation was slick and memorable and I'm very pleased for them that they were selected as the winners.'

Otto Marples, Mentor

8 other mentors took part in the challenge that saw them working with either 2 or 3 teams to help them develop their business plans. The Shell had already received an introductory briefing about the event prior to the day, so in the morning after a quick revision of the plan for the day and introduction from the mentors they were straight into their groups and onto the task of developing their business concept. For most of the pupils this is the first time that they have had to think about how to develop a product and get it to market, so there was a lot of ground to cover. However, the brief expected more creative thinking than subject matter expertise and the teams seemed to have a lot of fun generating ideas and developing an understanding for this area with their mentors' guidance. Having worked up their plan teams were then grouped and pitched their plan back to the mentors who now judged them on the coherence and viability of their plans as well as the level of team-work demonstrated. The winners of this first round of pitches then presented their plans to the whole group with the full panel of mentors providing their input to decide the winning team.

Mentors generally commented that it was clear to see how much effort the pupils had put into tackling what was for them a very novel challenge and the pitches in the final demonstrated thoughtfulness, clarity of concept and great team work.

If you are interested in becoming a mentor for a future business challenge or would be interested in providing support to the pupils more generall, do complete the 'Be Involved with Horizons' form and if you have any questions don't hesitate to make contact with the Horizons Team via horizons@bradfieldcollege.org.uk or 0118 964 4733.