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Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011 kicked off this year on 14 November with the 4 Entrepreneurs conference at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square, London.
Around 600 young people from schools across the UK attended the event organised by European Study Tours and Achievers International. This is the first event in the international conference programme that continues with Your Future In Europe in Paris, and Business: An American Perspective and The United Nations Forum in New York.
The day consisted of four talks from some of the most exciting entrepreneurs in the UK who gave invaluable advice gleaned from their own personal experience to the eager audience of business and enterprise students.
Richard Strudwick opened the conference with a short talk introducing the four entrepreneurs and speaking about the massive celebration of enterprise and entrepreneurship - Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Jo Fairley, co-founder of Green & Black's organic chocolate company (now owned by Cadbury's) told the young people in the audience that faith in your product is absolutely key, and that her company was shaped by her experiences as a consumer, not as a businesswoman. Therefore, it is very important to become analytical as a consumer. Her chocolate product Maya Gold launched in 1994 was the first ever Fairtrade product in the UK.
David Erasmus of Givey left the audience with the question - ‘consider the value of the work you're doing - what matters?'. Erasmus gave a fantastic anecdote of a failed venture in Brazil having a beneficial impact on three of his friends, despite having no personal value for him; he said that he was happy about this venture despite not succeeding in a conventional sense.
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