YES awards for some very bright minds

THE BEST: Springbank School's Ally Standing and Jessica Prak-Khin.

Northland secondary school students have a well-earned reputation for their ability to think innovatively, and the best of another very impressive crop were rewarded when the 2014 Northland Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) awards were presented at Waitangi.

Shining brightest were Springbank School students, Ally Standing and Jessica Prak-Khin.Their company, Ecovado, produced and marketed soap using a wax byproduct from the manufacture of avocado oil and was named Northland YES Company of the Year.

Ally and Jessica had worked with Olivado, and were donating part of their profits to supply stationery packs to workers on Olivado the Kerikeri company's partner estates in Kenya.

Meanwhile long-serving (and just retired) Northland Youth Development Trust board member and 'the father of E4E' (Enterprise for Education), Frank Leadley was honoured at national level for his services to education, while a new accolade, the Frank Leadley Award for Enterprise Champion, for which anyone involved in the programme (student, mentor, teacher etc) is eligible, was won by Taipa Area School student, Ezekiel Raui for his great work in motivating not only his own YES company (Inferno Events), but the other YES companies at his school, among other contributions.

Northland College YES company KTNT (Hokianga Honey) won the Manaaki Solutions YES Northland Maori Business of the Year award and the Gilmore Brown Award for Excellence in Financial Management, and will join Ecovado at the YES National Awards in Wellington on December 10, having also won an as yet un-announced national excellence award.

Janet Lang, the YES teacher at Whangarei Girls' High School, also won national accolades for Northland. She received the Sir James Fletcher Award for Outstanding Contribution to Enterprise Education, and will also travel to Wellington in December.

Other winners announced at Waitangi were as follows:

NorthTec Award for excellence in business management - Pick Me Up, Springbank School.

Northern Advocate Award for excellence in communication - Bios Ganos, Kerikeri High School.

Northpower Award for excellence in technology - JNH, Te Kapehu Whetu.

Dave Templeton Award for commitment - Alysha Terrizzi, Kerikeri High School.

R Tucker Thompson Sail Training Trust leadership award - Nathan Tarawa (KTNT), Northland College.

BDO Award for Young Managing Director of the Year - Ezekiel Raui, Taipa Area School.

Top Energy YES Company of the Year - Ecovado, Springbank; runner-up - KTNT, Northland College; third - Pick Me Up, Springbank.