North Wales Teams Shine at Young Enterprise Welsh Final 2025
Young Enterprise were delighted to welcome teams of young people from schools and Colleges across Wales to their Company and Team Programme Final in Cardiff. Generously hosted by Cardiff University, this event provided the opportunity for teams to compete for awards that recognised their achievements across a range of areas, including Creativity, Innovation, Sustainability, Technology, Teamwork and Welsh Culture.
Norgine, a specialist pharmaceutical company, were headline supporters for the event, presenting the Welsh Company of the Year award 2025 to Pack-a-Pren, a team from Olchfa school in Swansea. This diverse group of Year 10 students created Build Your Own Stadium kits, perfect for football and model building enthusiasts. Endorsed by Swansea FC, the team’s mission statement is to: “give people young and old the satisfaction from the accomplishment of bringing their sports memorabilia to life.”
Pack-a-Pren were also awarded the Technology award, presented by Howard Thompson, Regional Executive from UK Steel Enterprise.
From North Wales, Ysgol Hafod Lon and Coleg Cambria fielded winning teams at the Welsh Final. Menter y Ddraig from Ysgol Hafod Lon were awarded Runner Up in the Team Programme, for their company which makes gift cards and eco-logs out of waste materials. The team described their enterprise as proudly Welsh: “We created our logo to show Mount Snowdon as we are based in the heart of Snowdonia. Our passion for Wales and all things Welsh has led to us adding the dragon to our logo, and naming our enterprise ‘Menter y Ddraig’ which means enterprise of the dragon.”
Sports apparel business MountForce from Coleg Cambria (Yale Campus) secured the Best Presentation award for their confident and compelling business pitch. Reflecting on their journey so far, CEO Dylan Morris commented:
Despite starting this process later than many teams, our company’s performance is going extremely well. We’re learning a lot from this experience, including communication, digital skills, product design and marketing. Beyond the Young Enterprise experience, we’re confident about continuing the MountForce brand. We are extremely driven and will not stop until we achieve.
In North Wales, Young Enterprise is actively seeking volunteers to support Company Programme teams as mentors in the 25/26 academic year. The volunteering role is highly flexible and can be adapted around people’s other commitments. Regional Manager for the North West and North Wales Anthony Brown commented:
Being a volunteer Business Adviser to a Company or Team Programme team is hugely rewarding and we would be delighted to recruit more mentors for teams of young people in North Wales. Full training and ongoing support is provided, volunteers don’t need to be business experts in order be a mentor. What’s more important is the patience, interest in developing others and encouragement that our volunteers provide, to really help the young people to thrive in their Young Enterprise experience.
At the Welsh Final, volunteers from Browne Jacobson, Careers Wales, Cardiff University and DSW all committed their time to judge the competing teams and were hugely inspired by the hard work and determination from all the young people participating. Speaking about his experience, Christian Farrow, Corporate Partner at Browne Jacobson commented: “Making the decisions about which team should win each award was very challenging, as the standard of professionalism and commitment was so high across the board. We wished that every team could have progressed to the UK Final, they are all so deserving of the recognition. On behalf of all the judges, congratulations to every team who took part in this inspiring event, we are sure that all the young people will achieve great things on the back of this hugely impactful experience.”
Young Enterprise is deeply grateful to all the supporters, educators and volunteers who helped make these inspiring entrepreneurship experiences possible for young people across Wales this year. We are actively seeking grant funding or other forms of financial support to enable us to extend our reach create more opportunities for young people across Wales in the year ahead.
For more information about Young Enterprise’s work in Wales, please contact Ellie Denno (South & Mid Wales) or Anthony Brown (North Wales) via ellie.denno@y-e.org.uk and anthony.brown@y-e.org.uk
