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Councillor Chris Philp |
£1,000 prize for entrepreneurs
PARLIAMENTARY hopeful Chris Philp is using his own cash to fund a Dragons’ Den-style contest to find young business entrepreneurs in Kilburn.
The election candidate is pumping £1,000 into the project aimed at teams of young people aged between 16 and 24.
The idea is for the six teams to present viable plans for new businesses to a panel made up of himself and friends he has who work in the City – with the winners getting the money in order to make their dreams a reality.
Mr Philp, a Conservative councillor who is standing in the Hampstead and Kilburn parliamentary constituency, said he was inspired by his own background as an entrepreneur.
“It is designed to get youngsters thinking about business, entrepreneurship and enterprise. I want to give them confidence to see they could work in business,” said Mr Philp.
He said he was prompted to run the competition because of high unemployment rates in the Kilburn area and claims figures currently stand at around 35 per cent of people aged between 16 and 24 out of work.
After leaving university, Mr Philp worked in the City for two years before setting up his own company delivering products to small shops.
Backed by City investors, the company grew quickly. He now runs Pluto Developments, which has been helping finance building luxury holiday homes in Serbia and Montenegro and runs 150 apartments in Germany.
Cllr Philp also plans to run CV workshops, as he believes job centres offer merely “box ticking” exercises and do not help young people find work.
Drawing on volunteers from among business friends in the City and from those who came forward after he delivered 50,000 leaflets through doors in the constituency he hopes to win in the next general election, the classes will show how to create a CV.
They will be held at the Kilburn Youth Centre.
Cllr Philp said: “What I want to do is help them to search for jobs.”
The first session of Mr Philp’s version of Dragons’ Den takes place on Wednesday. |
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