BDO PROJECT:
“THE BIG PITCH CHALLENGE”

On Tuesday 28th June 15 Junior BDO volunteers delivered their ’Big Pitch Challenge’ project to 40
Year 10 Mount St Mary’s students.

The students worked in small groups (supported by a BDO coach from the Project Team) to come up with a tech start-up idea to pitch for investment over the course of a single school day. The challenge was to design a ‘New Summer Music Festival’. Throughout the day, real-time “curveball” events were announced, such as fictional news stories, changes to the law and taxation, that students needed to respond to by adapting their business plans.

At the end of the day, students pitched their ideas at a mock tech conference in front of Angel Investors (played by senior staff members from BDO) who would decide whether to invest. Their ideas had to be a
fully-costed business plan to succeed.

During the day each student within their teams were assigned a variety of roles – a finance officer, a sales officer, a creative officer. According to their role within the team they had to then attend one of the following workshops: Budgeting and Investment (Finance Officer), Communication and Public Speaking (Sales Officer), Marketing and Branding (Creative Officer). This allowed them to gain an insight into the world of work that they will take with them and remember long after the event.