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North-East Fife businesspeople joined St Andrews University students, staff, members of the public and Club members to hear the stories of several of Scotland’s most inspiring entrepreneurs as part of this year’s university Enterprise Week.

The free Keynote Event at The Byre Theatre on Wednesday night heard the stories and lessons of three Scottish entrepreneurs. The Club partnered with the Enterprise Week student committee to help organise the event as part of its commitment to nurturing entrepreneurship in the area.

Attendees took part in a networking wine reception with canapes before being welcomed by the Principal, Professor Sally Mapstone. She spoke about the increasing role of enterprise in the university and the importance of creativity in it.

Professor Mapstone then introduced Geoff Morris, the university’s Director of Special Projects & Community Engagement, who is responsible for the Eden Campus development in Guardbridge and he spoke about its vision and progress to date.

Craft beer

First of the inspiring entrepreneurs to share their story and lessons was Alan Mahon, co-founder of Brewgooder, the social enterprise which aims to provide clean water for a million people by producing and selling excellent craft beer and donating all the profits to clean water charities.

In its first year sales of Clean Water Lager funded two new well projects in Malawi providing 5,000 people with clean drinking water, transforming rural communities. This year it’s funding 60 projects helping 33,000 people. It also recently won the innovation award in the Scottish Beer Awards.

Alan spoke of the increasing importance of mission in business and told attendees how Social Bite, at which he works with Josh Littlejohn, went from a shop in Edinburgh’s Rose St to a planned village in Granton with high-quality affordable eco-housing for people suffering from being homeless. He also announced that students all over Scotland are being invited to join the Social Bite Sleep in the Park event in Edinburgh’s Princes St Gardens on December 9 in return for a minimum fundraising donation.

App company

Next up was 2007 St Andrews Economics & Management graduate Ines Teles, who founded the university’s Entrepreneurship Society. She co-founded app company DWYL in 2013 after working for the NHS and consultants Accenture and talked about the importance of openness and the growing role for machine learning.

Final speaker was St Andrews alumna Pippa Geaves, who graduated with an MLitt in Art History in 2013 and a Postgraduate Diploma in Managing in the Creative Industries in 2014. While working for a PR and creative agency, the graphic and web designer won the Innovation award at the DevelopHER Awards in November last year.

Pippa then decided to explore the consumer side of playful design and stationery, by founding Jeeves & Co. Design Studio in January this year. She explained how a failure to plan a career before graduating had led her to end up at her local Job Centre, but the circuitous route she’d taken to creating her company felt better than the more traditional one and had taught her more.

Q&A

The event finished with questions from the audience to the speakers.

Speaking about the event, St Andrews Business Club President, Alistair Morris, said: ”We’re delighted to have been asked to contribute to this event to help inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs and business people. The Club welcomes them to any of our own events.”

Bonnie Hacking, Enterprise & Employability Adviser at the University of St Andrews, said: “We’d like to thank St Andrews Business Club for its contribution to this event. We look forward to this being the first of many events we work on together to promote enterprise in our students and in the local community.”

For the full set of photos from the event, go to https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.827569870755347.1073741833.581675778678092&type=1&l=043ff2265a

For details of the final Enterprise Week events today [Oct 13] go to http://standrewsenterpriseweek.com

Members and guests of the Club got a VIP insight into the town’s new Kinnettles Hotel in the first event of the new season. 

General Manager Grant Cooper and his staff welcomed club members and their guests to the boutique hotel on North St, which opened in July.

Grant explained the history of the project and some of the plans for the future before leading attendees on a guided tour of the facilities which include a luxurious suite, the state-of-the-art Eden spa and the Tayberry at Kinnettles restaurant run by award-winning chef Adam Newth.

Members and guests also sampled some of its delights via delicious canapes!

Unsurprisingly, this proved to be a very popular event.

For more photos, go to the Album on our Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.812833208895680.1073741831.581675778678092&type=1&l=b6ef9c175e 

Date: Wednesday 11 October 2017

Venue: Main Auditorium, The Byre Theatre, Abbey St, St Andrews, KY16 9LA.

Times:

– 5.30pm – Wine Reception + canapes with students & University staff including Principal, Professor Sally Mapstone

– 7pm – Welcome from Professor Sally Mapstone followed by Speakers + Panel Q&A

– 9pm – Event finishes

The event

Part of Enterprise Week, the Keynote Event is an opportunity to hear from entrepreneurs from across the UK about their experiences and approach. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and to network with refreshments beforehand.

St Andrews Business Club has partnered with the Enterprise Week student committee to help organise this event, as part of the Club’s commitment to nurturing entrepreneurship in the area.

For full details of the week, go to https://standrewsenterpriseweek.com/

Speakers:

Alan Mahon, Co-founder Brewgooder

In early 2016, after years working together on projects to tackle homelessness in Scotland, Alan Mahon and Josh Littlejohn of Social Bite set out to provide clean water for a million people by producing and selling excellent craft beer and donating 100% of the profits to clean water charities.

With the help of BrewDog – who brew their beer at zero margin – they founded Brewgooder and on World Water Day 2016 asked craft beer drinkers across the world to help them on our mission via crowdfunding . In its first year sales of Clean Water Lager funded two new well projects in Malawi providing 5,000 people with clean drinking water, transforming rural communities.

In the 2017 Scottish Beer Awards it won Innovation of the Year.

Alan will share his lessons from the Brewgooder journey.

Find out more about Brewgooder on its website – https://www.brewgooder.com/

Ines Teles, Co-founder DWYL (2007, MA Economics & Management)

From the DWYL website: “I co-founded dwyl because I wanted to use technology to help people and organisations realise their potential and make the world a little brighter in the process!

“I make sure we’re working with people doing great things, help our clients problem solve, provide training, try to make dwyl a little better every day, scrum master, and whenever I can, make time to code on our open source projects.

“dwyl’s values closely match my own ? and it makes me so happy to work with such amazing people every day! I ❤️ accessibility, sustainability, education and advocating for women in tech.”

Pippa Geaves, Founder and Creative Director, Jeeves & Co. Design Studio (2013, MLitt Art History; 2014, PG Dip Managing in the Creative Industries)

From the Jeeves & Co website: “Jeeves & Co. Design Studio was founded by Pippa Geaves (pronounced ‘Jeeves’), an award-winning graphic and web designer.

“After graduating from the University of St Andrews with postgraduate qualifications in Art History and Creative Industries Management, Pippa went on to work for a successful PR and creative agency in Suffolk.

“In November 2016, Pippa won the Innovation award sponsored by Barclays at the DevelopHER Awards and was recognised for her ability to channel her creativity into commercial success.

“Always looking for her next challenge, Pippa decided to branch out from commercial design and explore the consumer side of things. With her love of playful design and stationery, Jeeves & Co. Design Studio was born.”

Geoff Morris, Director of Special Projects & Community Engagement, University of St Andrews.

Geoff has held senior leadership positions at two children’s charities – Barnardo’s and Wooden Spoon as well as running the 800th Anniversary celebrations for the University of Cambridge, where he still works occasionally as a consultant.

As CEO of children’s charity Wooden Spoon, he more than trebled turnover in the five years of his leadership.

Over the past three years, Geoff has worked to develop the Scotland CAN DO Scale programme benefitting more than 200 entrepreneurs.

Geoff is settled in the East Neuk of Fife and is committed to the University of St Andrews. While his attention has been on community engagement, he is currently focussed on creating a thriving economic community at Eden Campus, in the village of Guardbridge.

Why you should attend

Every business can learn something from the journeys of successful entrepreneurs. And you’ll get a chance to ask them questions and hopefully meet them too.

BOOK NOW

• Club members should email the Club ASAP to request one of the priority tickets being allocated to Club members for this event. This will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

• Non-members can book a FREE ticket via the Byre Theatre website – https://byretheatre.com/events/enterprise-week-2017-keynote/

Parking

There is car parking on South Street, free after 6pm.  Google Maps – https://goo.gl/maps/sNVX5NtvRa82