Students target mini company trade fair win

More than 300 secondary school students will be hoping their entrepreneurial ideas will take off as Cork Airport hosts the tenth annual mini company Christmas Trade Fair.

Approximately 100 mini companies from across South Cork are expected to take part in the event tomorrow and the unprecedented level of participation has prompted the move to Cork Airport, which hosts the fair for the first time.

“Cork Airport is delighted to partner with the Schools Enterprise Programme to showcase the brightest and best entrepreneurial talent at this year’s Christmas trade fair,” said Niall MacCarthy, Cork Airport managing director said.

“It is appropriate that the trade fair takes place here at Cork Airport which plays such a pivotal role for business, commerce and tourism in the region.”

Set up by the Local Enterprise Offices, the Schools Enterprise Awards are open to second-level students across the country and has had more than 17,000 participants each year. The Christmas trade fair aims to give students involved in the programme an opportunity to showcase their mini companies and facilitate inter-school learning and selling.

The groups will be interviewed and rated on their business acumen across skills, such as working as part of a team, managing production and finances, organising a sales and marketing campaign and liaising directly with customers, judges and the media.

“We are delighted for the first time this year to partner with Cork Airport to host the Christmas Trade Fair for the South Cork Schools Enterprise Programme,” said Sean O’Sullivan, head of enterprise, Local Enterprise Office South Cork.

“Youth entrepreneurship is so vitally important to our future economy and events such as this allow young student businesses to experience real world commerce.

“A legacy of all the activity that ourselves and many businesses in our communities have brought into the schools is that we have a world of innovative, ambitious and extremely confident young people seriously looking at working for themselves as career option. This can only bear fruit in the short years ahead,” he said.