University News Last updated 02 November 2012
Hot on the heels of the new series of BBC’s The Young Apprentice, Birmingham City University’s very own young business minds will be battling it out this Wednesday 7 November; faced with the challenge of setting up and running a music business within one day.
Students in their first year at Birmingham City Business School have volunteered in their droves to take part in the highly acclaimed Musikscool challenge where they will have less than 8 hours to create a brand new music album from scratch, put it on the market, and raise £10,000 in sales and sponsorship from their finished ideas. The money raised from sales will go to SENSE, the deaf-blind charity, who will be present on the day to over-see proceedings.
However the task may not be as ‘easy’ as the unsuspecting business savvy students believe; as they will be challenged to put together a wholly original 5 track musical album and upload it to iTunes. Students will be expected to go as far as playing instruments and singing on the tracks as well as getting on the phones, internet and creating a social media presence with the goal of obtaining sponsorship for the album from corporate donors, local radio stations, friends and family.
Vanessa Clarke, Director of the Undergraduate Leadership Development Programme, at Birmingham City Business School, said: “I’m thrilled that we are the first university to undertake this challenge. It will be a high pressure day with our students having to produce a series of outputs using a wide range of media; but no doubt it will be a testament to the university’s key goal to providing students with the employability skills they need to hit the ground running in the workplace.”
HMV, Cisco, Rolls Royce and John Lewis have all successfully taken part in the Musikscool challenge; with the record for one day’s fundraising currently standing at £38,000 by the team from the John Lewis Partnership.
For more details on how you can get involved and help support the University’s students raise £10,000 in one day please get in touch with Vanessa Clarke on 0121 331 6228 or at Vanessa.Clarke@bcu.ac.uk