Business on the Move scoops RBS Award!

Business on the Move, the multimodal educational board game to excite and inspire players about the global supply chain, has been awarded a £9,500 Award from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as part of the Group’s Inspiring Enterprise initiative.

RBS Inspiring Youth Enterprise aims to encourage a more entrepreneurial culture. From the classroom to the boardroom, RBS is inspiring and enabling enterprise at every stage of the journey, making £500,000 of grants available every year for the next three years with awards being made to organisations that support young people through dedicated enterprise programmes.

More than 200 organisations applied for the latest round of grants and Business on the Move is one of just 12 winners announced this week across the UK. Applications were submitted online and winners were chosen by a judging panel and public vote in which more than 7,000 people took part.

Business on the Move offers young people a fun way to develop their enterprise and employability skills and start on their enterprise journey.

This brand new educational game challenges players to run a business that must respond to customers’ orders, moving different products to their domestic market by combinations of air, sea, rail and road as quickly, as profitably and as environmentally responsibly as they can.

Extensive trials of the game have demonstrated the game’s relevance not only to learners in school and but also to employees, particularly new recruits, across the supply chain.

Thom Kenrick, Head of Sustainability Programmes, RBS Group said:
“We are delighted to support 12 more organisations with this round of Inspiring Youth Enterprise funding. Once again we were hugely impressed by the depth and breadth of the enterprise support that’s available for the UK’s young people. RBS is committed to unlocking, supporting and nurturing entrepreneurial talent and we believe these organisations will help us achieve that goal.”

With the RBS Award, the game developers have now raised over 90% of the business sponsorship they need to press the button for the first production run. Just a few more companies are needed to make the game board complete, ideally retailers and/or brand names known to young people to make the game feel “real”.

As many as 12,000 young people are projected to play Business on the Move within twelve months of launch and a 100,000 potential players over five years.

Pat Smedley, a director of the Very Enterprising Community Interest Company that developed the game, commented:
“The RBS Inspiring Enterprise grant funding will enable our programme to ensure that the hundreds of free games being supplied by more than 20 business sponsors are supported by a quality training programme.”

Further details are available from the game’s website at www.businessonthemove.org where you can scroll down to see a two-minute video clip of the game in action and learn more about plans to launch the game during the autumn of 2013. Join Business on the Move’s Twitter community.

Notes to Editors:

• As part of Inspiring Enterprise, RBS is making £3 million of grant funding available, £250,000 of which was available in this round.

• This round of Inspiring Youth Enterprise funding was open for applications online from 4^th to 18^th of March 2013.

• RBS received more than 200 applications and shortlisted 29 for the final judging round of which 12 were selected.

• The 29 shortlisted applications received more than 7,000 public votes between them.

• The applications were considered by an expert panel including Steve Matthews (MD Commercial Banking RBS Group), Dawn Cranswick (PNE Group), Andy Penalula (Swansea Met University) and Pinky Lilani (Spice  Magic and Asian Women of Achievement).

• Each of the 12 organisations will receive a grant of between £1,570 and £50,000 and will be invited to join the RBS Inspiring Enterprise network.

• Business on the Move has been developed by two former teachers who have set up a community interest company, a form of social enterprise, with an “asset lock” to guarantee any surplus is reinvested in the community.