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200 North Wales pupils engage with Magnox North’s Innovation Mindset

Magnox North Wylfa Site were proud to be the main sponsors of the North Wales Young Enterprise Innovation Awards 2010 event held at Venue Cymru, Llandudno on 29th April. 

Young Enterprise is the UK’s leading business education charity which inspires young people to learn and succeed by gaining practical experience of running their own company and taking a new product or service to market with the support of a Business Mentor from their community. 

Ysgol Uchwradd Bodedern signed up for the Young Enterprise programme with so much enthusiasm this year they entered 3 teams into the competition with the support of Wylfa Business Advisors Jan Milburn and Michelle Humphreys. Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones, Amlwch and Tryfan School, Bangor also received support from Wylfa Business Advisors Llinos Davies and Andrew Taylor respectively.

The awards were designed to celebrate the success and achievements of pupils from schools and colleges who have taken part in Young Enterprise’s innovation programme this academic year.  Commercial Director, Peter Walkden;  Peter Burns, Wylfa Site Deputy Director, and Gwyndaf Williams, Trawsfynydd Supply Chain Manager on secondment to Wylfa Operations, had the tough job of judging the innovative products and services created and marketed by the young entrepreneurs. These ranged from a CD to encourage children to brush their teeth to mobile phone covers knitted from recycled wool. Gwyndaf summed up the day as ‘Superb, innovative, imaginative… truly amazing.’

Chris Skarratt, Magnox North’s Commercial Manager for Innovations, presented a series of seminars which challenged the audience to ‘open their mind to the opportunities inside’ and consider themselves as the designers of the future. Retro 1980’s mobile phones were hired and used to illustrate how innovations in technology have transformed the basic ‘brick’ mobile phone to the features of today’s iPhone. Hologram laptops, curry flavoured food tablets, hover shoes and cars, never-ending drinks and the destruction of all diseases were some of the suggested new product innovations from the imaginative audience. Chris described the experience as ‘Awesome! So inspiring to see the energy and participation from these young people’.

Lisa Morgan, Wylfa STEM Co-ordinator and STEM Ambassador, Mark Wells hosted a Magnox North ‘Spaghetti Bridge Building’ Challenge to test the young people’s design technology, communication and teamwork skills. Cinema tickets were awarded to the teams who created the strongest and best engineered bridges. The competition was a resounding success - Kalum from Alun School described it as ‘The highlight of my day!’

A fabulous day, enjoyed by all and a great example of Magnox North working in the Community.