More than 700 local business owners, students and academics registered for the three-day BU Festival of Enterprise held at the Talbot Campus.
The Festival of Enterprise reached out to both established and emerging businesses from the regional business community.
One-to-one business advice opportunities were provided at a business consultancy pop-up shop, as well as business innovation workshops, which covered online marketing, cyber-security and business law across a range of topics.
The Game Changer event, jointly produced by BU and the NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group saw an opportunity to build and renew networking relationships across the region, including input from charitable organisations, government and small and medium-sized enterprises.
That’s The Way To Do It: 2, an event produced by Think, Create, Do as part of the Festival of Enterprise brought together a varied group of local digital economy businesses and entrepreneurs, offering an insight into emerging digital business models.
The festival also hosted the UK Premiere film screening of She Started It, a documentary film looking at young female entrepreneurs creating new tech start-ups. A follow-up Q&A session with Matt Desmier, of Think, Create, Do resulted in discussions relating to raising finance and improving opportunities for women in the digital economy.
BU lecturer and organiser, Keith Pretty said: “I was so pleased to see that the event successfully reached out to not only established businesses, but also those with ideas for new businesses seeking help and advice.
“The popularity of the event was a fantastic result that demonstrates the strength of interest in sharing and networking across our regional business community.”
BU Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Fletcher said: “Attendees commented on the value of making new contacts and the insights they gained from the various events to promote innovation and change in their own organisations.
“Partnerships were at the heart of this year's Festival of Enterprise. We could not have made this event such a success without our partners, whose efforts, enthusiasm and resources helped bring the event to life. It is also good to hear from colleagues that opportunities arose for creating new partnerships and collaborations with the university, contributing to the ongoing impact of the event in our business community.”
The festival now continues with local digital practitioners and small business development advisers visiting BU to work with final year students on entrepreneurial ventures, and in 2017, a partnership with Santander to run a Business Development Award to help BU students and graduate businesses to get started or transition to their next stage of growth.
Should you or your business want to get involved in the Festival of Enterprise in November 2017, please contact Keith Pretty at [email protected].