Makyth Ventures Ignite
Winchester College’s annual inter-school pitching competition for secondary school students across the UK. Fostering entrepreneurial skills and mindsets amongst students, encouraging inter-school collaboration and raising the profile of entrepreneurial education across the sector.
Participating student teams take part in a series of workshops with experienced business professionals to help them build compelling business proposals, culminating in a live pitch competition for family, friends and of course, a panel of judges.
For ambitious, curious Year 9-11 students from across the UK.
If you’d like to learn more about MV Ignite, please get in touch at [email protected]
Student Benefits
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Hands-on entrepreneurial experience
Immersive programming from Winchester College’s Makyth Ventures team aimed at helping students build foundational entrepreneurial skills and mindsets.
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Professional skill building
Working with - and competing against - peers from leading secondary schools across the UK; students build collaboration, leadership, presentation and inter-personal skills.
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Networking opportunities
Students tackle a real-world entrepreneurial case challenge guided by experienced founders and practitioners across the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“It was amazing seeing so many students come together, challenging each other. You could see how they all had thought about how they got there and how to explain their solutions to someone else.”
— 2022 educator
“It was a great experience. We learned a lot, not just on the day, but the whole process towards it. I really advise coming back here and taking part in it again next year.”
— 2023 student
“The final was an energising and exciting day. I saw real drive and energy today, especially in their community engagement. It was great seeing students go above and beyond in finding their solution.”
— 2022 educator
MV Ignite 2025
The next MV Ignite competition will be launched in Autumn 2025.
We invite teams of ambitious and creative students from schools across the UK to take part. If you are interested in being a part of this exciting project, please get in touch below or by emailing [email protected].
Tackling real-world problems.
See some examples below of the themes we select for each cohort, ensuring they are relevant to students’ futures.
2024: Social Entrepreneurship
In 2024, students were tasked with thinking about social entrepreneurship and how they could use creative ideas to solve real world problems in their local community. With such a broad theme, students had free range to consider a problem which meant something to them. Problem solving, innovation, and critical thinking was in abundance. As such, the judges were presented with a variety of business proposals spanning a business to deter stubble burning amongst rice farmers in Thailand to a gamified financial literacy app.
2023: The Future of Food
Last year we partnered with FUEL10K, a leading innovative UK breakfast brand, exploring the future of food amongst macro trends like climate change, ageing populations, natural commodities, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The challenge? Pitching a successful new product for FUEL10K, but imagining you're in the year 2043. Students were challenged to think creatively, understand macro world trends and convince a panel of impressive 'Dragons' from the food industry.
2022: The Case Against Waste
We wanted to challenge this MV Ignite cohort to look around them. Where did they see wastefulness in their school? What exactly is being wasted? How can waste be repurposed to realise new opportunities?
At the beginning of your project, students were tasked with identifying a problem within their schools relating to waste. As the projects showed, there was no shortage of creativity in identifying problems and coming up with solutions from making school uniforms in hemp to designing an app to map school community engagement with waste management.
How to get involved.
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly!