Business success for Tauranga Girls

A group of business-savvy students from Tauranga Girls' College has placed second in a prestigious young enterprise contest.
Year 13 students Rajinder Singh, Hayley Horne, Emma Harvey, Kaashta Khullar, Carey Lintott and Viviana Shin entered their business, EduKid NZ, into the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Trust competition after creating and selling a wall chart to help children learn words, numbers and te reo Maori.
The teaching resource has been a commercial success, with Kidicorp, a provider of early childhood education across the country, buying the group's business and product for use in all its centres.
Marketing and selling the interactive wall chart was the culmination of a year's work which the girls carried out as an extra-curricular activity by meeting at school once a week at 7am.
They competed against 594 other teams across the country, most of whom study young enterprise as a subject, entitling them to up to five hours of class-time each week to complete their work.
Despite having less time to develop a business product when compared with students at other schools, the Girls' College team won the Bay of Plenty/Coromandel regional section and took out five excellence awards in leadership, communication, production and technology, sales and marketing and finance.
Winning the regional section placed them in the top 21 teams nationally and entitled them to deliver a five-minute presentation about their business to a panel of five judges in Wellington.
Their efforts saw them place second overall in the contest and pick up the Todd Corporation Award for Young Enterprisers. Once again their communication was recognised with an excellence award but this time at a national level.
The awards were presented at a gala dinner in Wellington with business leaders and Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand.
Mentor Anne Pankhurst and teachers Jude Maurice and Amanda Haines guided the team through the year and were with the girls in Wellington to celebrate their achievement.
Jude says the trip was made possible thanks to the generous support of law firm Holland Becket.
"Without them, the whole team wouldn't have been able to get there. It was such an honour to place second so we're so grateful they helped us with our travelling costs."
The team was unable to speak to the Bay News due to commitments with NCEA Level 3 exams but Jude says the girls' success was due to determination and team work.
"They developed a fantastic business and while we were in the background supporting them, they had to do all the hard work like negotiating for the best printing price and developing a website themselves."
Their wall chart features matching velcro flashcards to encourage recognition of words, numbers, colours and te reo Maori. The resource, aimed at 4- to 7-year-olds, retails for $25.
The team's prize was $2000 to share and $1000 for the college's business studies department. Leaving school, the students have decided to wind up their involvement in the business by on-selling it to Kidicorp for an undisclosed sum.
Pictured: Tauranga Girls' College young enterprise students (from left) Kaashta Khullar, Emma Harvey, Carey Lintott, Rajinder Singh, Hayley Horne and Viviana Shin.