In April-July 2022, the British Council collaborated with London Metropolitan University (UK) to organize the largest video pitch competition, Creative Spark Big Idea Challenge, as part of the British Council’s Creative Spark Higher Education Enterprise Program. The competition aimed to promote the development of students’, graduates’ and young entrepreneurs’ business ideas by awarding the winners to assist them with the implementation of their pitched idea.
The Creative Spark Big Idea Challenge is designed as a 60-second video pitching competition to teach the basics of entrepreneurship and how to develop an idea from concept to reality. The platform also helps young entrepreneurs to raise their profile and improve their career prospects. Among 250 start-up ideas from 70 institutions in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, BOOKI, a team of undergrads from Kutaisi, Georgia, as named the Grand Champion and the winner of the monetary prize and personalized mentoring support. BOOKI also won people’s hearts in the previous stage of the competition at the People’s Choice Award on Facebook.
Made up of four members, Erekle Beridze, Anano Shavardashvili, Giorgi Abesadze, and Valer Gurgenashvili, BOOKI’s winning idea aims to create an easy-to-use online platform for second-hand booksellers and buyers of all ages. Through interactive delivery service functions, the team of four beneficiaries of the British Council’s Creative Spark program plan to create a comfortable online shopping environment, thus helping customers to save time and resources.
To meet the creators of BOOKI and for detailed information on the project, click here.
The winning idea under the ‘Social Impact’ category of the Big Idea Challenge will come to life and meet customers by the end of the year.
About Creative Spark
The British Council’s Creative Spark: Higher Education Enterprise program started in 2018 and is in its final year. Creative Spark aims to develop enterprise skills and the creative economy across seven countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan), South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) and Ukraine through sharing the UK experience and expertise in the creative economy which quite fairly is considered most advanced in Europe. The program’s primary beneficiaries are university students, graduates and young entrepreneurs.
“We believe this initiative significantly supports the development of the creative economy because young creative entrepreneurs acquire new skills which make them competitive in local and international markets. Moreover, the program supports the establishment and development of the British-Georgian University/institutional partnerships,” British Council’s representative states.
