Last week Dialogue’s editor David Woods was asked to be on the panel of HULT International Business School’s Dragons’ Den competition

The competition came as part of Enterprise Week and involved students pitching like professionals in front of their peers and a panel of ‘Dragons’.

Teams were given a few days to come up with their business idea, conduct market research, pricing and promotion strategies and devise a way to get their product to market.

Woods, described by Hult as a ‘multi-award winning editorial professional with skills and experience in trade and professional book publishing, consumer and business to business magazines, academic journals, online learning, people management and public relations’ sat on the panel alongside the Dean of Hult undergraduate program Dr Melissa Willby  also Lazo Freeman, a successful Fitness Entrepreneur turned Lifestyle Entrepreneur with a wealth of experience advising clients on negotiation. Freeman has also been a Body Transformation Specialist and a Business Coach, a Media Company owner and a Film Producer.

The winning team on the night was Expo-prawn, which comprised two students from Ecuador, who created a proposal for a company to import prawns, cocoa and roses from South America to the UK.

They said of the event: “We feel very grateful and optimistic about the future of our start-up.  The feedback we got from the professors helped us a lot in making our proposal stronger and more attractive to prospective investors.”

Willby said: “All of the eleven teams and their members have worked so hard and have really delivered a series of well thought out investment proposals. It really was a tough choice to choose the winning team! There were some incredibly inspiring ideas; this really showcased the DNA of Hult students, internationally mobile and super entrepreneurial!”

Freeman added: “Young dragons finding their business success and practicing the art of pitching at Hult was a pleasure to watch and even inspired me to look at my business with those fresh eyes. I wish them every success in their future business careers”

Woods said: “In a world where the media focuses so much on the potential for disruption generation Y could bring to the corporate world, Hult business School has renewed my faith in the potential of millennials. If all university graduates have the same savvy, creativity, confidence and sheer grit as the young entrepreneurs from Hult’s Dragons’ Den, then I think our economies are set to be shaken up for the better.”

A big thanks to Hult London for putting together a great evening.