Social Gamers win Young Entrepreneur Programme

left to right : Social Gamers : Imed Abnoun, Marsell Fazilov and Davin Barrett.

Congratulations to Ms. Sarah Spillane for coordinating the YEP programme during the year. We, the school community, are very grateful for her dedication and hard work.

YEP is short for Young Entrepreneur Programme.  This programme gives Transition Year students the chance to set up their own business and sell their own product or service and essentially become "business people". I myself could not wait to take part in such an exciting programme!

All Transition Year students attended a Blue Sky Day in the Brandon Hotel in September introducing us to the programme where we heard famous entrepreneurs tell their stories and give us ideas on how to set up a successful and viable business. We went back to school buzzing with ideas and notions on how to be the next millionaire!

I formed a group with two of my classmates Davin and Imed. Our idea was to set up video game tournaments all around Ireland as part of our YEP project. To start, we carried out market research where we made out surveys to ask students in our school whether or not people have an interest in this tournament. The response was overwhelmingly positive and we were left with no choice but to launch a tournament in school! This ran every lunchtime and we generated significant revenue from this venture. Of course, we needed a cool name and decided on "The Social Gamers".

Throughout the year, we got the chance to pitch to RTE and were on television! We even got to make out a full business plan, which included everything from marketing, to finance to a SWOT analysis to planning our monthly revenue! As the year went on we were taken to various events such as pitching in the ITT and Business Boot Camp where we were mentored about how to start up and run a successful business. The year was jam packed with so much it was awesome!

The end product after all this hard work was a fully completed, professional business plans to the YEP Judges. 50 plans were shortlisted out of over 600 projects and 3 of those were from CBS The Green - Social Gamers, T-Swivel and Allegro.

To prepare for our pitching took hours of practice but it was worth it. On the day we pitched a panel of entrepreneurs questioned us on every aspect of our business and it was really tough! 2 groups from school were selected to go to the finals and we were so thrilled.

For the finalist trip we got a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the President of Ireland and even pitch our business to him!! As part of the trip, we also got to meet with many famous companies such as Google. We stayed overnight in Dublin and were taken shopping the next day. It was so much fun!

The finalist’s awards night was held in The Malton Hotel, Killarney on May 3rd. We had to set up a business stall for the judges to view and had to pitch in front of a thousand people! The judges included Nora Casey from Dragon's Den and Jerry Kennelly! It was such a nerve racking and exciting night! At the end of the night we got great news and were astounded when Collette Fitzpatrick from TV3 called out the winners of the Young Entrepreneur Programme 2012....  The Social Gamers!!

Our prize includes a trip to New York City and a two-week placement with Kerry Enterprise Board.

All in all, the Young Entrepreneur Programme has been an amazing opportunity to develop valuable life skills. Before doing this programme, I just wanted to finish school and move onto college and get a job. Now I want to develop my own business and be my own boss!

Marsell Fazilov 

Social Gamers 

"Let The Games Begin!" 

Contact no. +353 85 271 7863 

Contact us: socialgamers.eu "Like Us" On Facebook