Enter The Dragons… SERC Students Make Their Pitch

Enter the Dragons! One of the most daunting experiences any budding business person could make is pitching to a room full of poetental white knights, entrepreneurial success stories, also known as ‘dragons’. It is a make or break scenario and those pitching need to be on top of their business otherwise they will fall short of the mark. A team of enterprising SERC students were celebrating when they took on the Dragons and won, in a student Dragons Den-style competition hosted by South Eastern Regional College (SERC) in the St Patrick Centre in Downpatrick.xa0 Computing and Media students from across Co Down from Downpatrick, Lisburnand Bangor SERC campuses took part in the inter-campus competition which aimed to encourage entrepreneurial thinking. [caption id="attachment_24684" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="South Eastern Regional College (SERC) IT students Stefan Smyth, Darren O'x80x99Sullivan, David McComb and Declan Trainor."][/caption] The Downpatrick team was made up of Newcastle’s Darren O’Sullivan, Declan Trainor from Downpatrick and Saintfield pair Stefan Smyth and David McComb. Darren had the unenviable task of pitching their idea to the panel of judges but performed admirably securing the Dragons ‘backing’. Students studying Extended Diplomas in Media and IT are required to complete a unit on Computer Game Design and as part of their assessment they have to prepare a proposal for a new computer game.xa0 Last year xa0SERC launched a Dragons Den competition allowing students to develop their entrepreneurial skills by getting them to pitch their computer game proposal to a panel of ‘Dragons’ made up of industry professionals including representatives from Microsoft. During the competition, Darren was required to make a 10 minute ‘pitch’ on the game concept, the proposed target market and marketability of the game, and in true Dragons Den style he had to answer a series of gruelling questions from the panel.xa0 The winning team came up with the idea of a historical vampiric, free Rome action adventure game which would be available across all gaming consoles. The Dragons were positively impressed by the game concept and the development potential the idea possessed. The event was organised by Media Studies lecturer Campbell Millar who said, “This was an excellent opportunity for students to present to business people. They had to prepare a proposal considering the target market for the game and how the game would be marketed, they also had to be prepared for some tough questioning by the ‘Dragons’, hopefully the experience of the competition will benefit students when they enter into the business world.” Heather Lyons was also successful in receiving the ‘backing’ of the Dragons. Heather is a Media studies student at SERC and studies at the Newcastle campus where SERC offer a range of full-time Media studies and IT courses.]]>