Enfield student wins major entrepreneurship competition

Enfield student Kadeisha Antoine, who was named the 'grand champion' at this year's Big Idea Challenge — *Enfield student Kadeisha Antoine, who was named the ‘grand champion’ at this year’s Big Idea Challenge*

An Enfield student has been named ‘grand champion’ at this year’s Big Idea Challenge, one of London’s biggest entrepreneurship and innovation competitions.

Kadeisha Antoine, who is currently studying biomedical science at London Metropolitan University, collected the prize at a ceremony held at Museum of London earlier this month.

The Enfield resident’s idea, The City Herbarium, is a luxury bespoke subscription outlet specialising in products for multi-ethnic consumers. It will provide a hub for health, wellbeing and beauty products with a strong focus on stock from small, black-owned businesses.

Explaining her idea, Kadeisha said: “Multi-ethnic consumers account for 10% of beauty industry purchases, valued at over £2.7billion per year. Yet 40% struggle to purchase all their products in one place, with 12% feeling uncomfortable shopping in non-Bame [black, Asian and minority ethnic] spaces.

“Additionally, consumer interest in clean beauty has grown, with 45% of British consumers using at least one organic product in the last six months, and 64% of consumers prioritising recyclable packaging.

“As a black woman, I have to shop in multiple establishments for my beauty needs, and I want those products to be clean for me, the earth and accessible. The City Herbarium would bridge that gap, providing luxury products, while multi-ethnic consumers and businesses thrive from these partnerships.”

Asked how it felt to win the prize, Kadeisha continued, “I am absolutely stunned and honoured to have won a prestigious competition such as this. The process and support leading up to the final has been excellent and Accelerator and London Metropolitan helped to make it happen, with their support I’ll be able to make The City Herbarium a thriving collaborative business for our communities and other small businesses”

Now in its ninth year, the Big Idea Challenge is an annual, entrepreneurial competition that gives students, staff and alumni the chance to pitch and develop their own business idea, potentially launching them into a real-life business. The competition is organised by Accelerator, London Met’s business incubator.

There were seven awards categories and now each winner will be given the tools to develop their business and have access to a shared prize pool of £30,000 to launch their winning idea. Previous winners have gone on to launch businesses that have created hundreds of jobs and millions of pounds profit.

Simon Boot, head of Accelerator, said: “The Big Idea Challenge had such a high calibre of entries this year.

“The judges had a tough job on their hands choosing the winners from such a strong cohort. The variety of ideas put forward really highlight the diversity and creativity of London Met’s community.

“At Accelerator, we put our all into supporting the winning ideas, and I am excited to see how these ideas develop next.”

Kadeisha’s pitch can be seen on YouTube here.

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