Young entrepreneurs set to battle it out at KickStart awards

YOUNG entrepreneurs from Birmingham who have launched businesses to develop Google glass apps for the blind and provide virtual assistants for start-up companies are among the finalists competing for a £20,000 first prize at a regional awards ceremony.

Baldwins Accountants’ second KickStart Young Entrepreneurs Awards will be held on Thursday, November 20 at Villa Park when three businesses have been shortlisted to win a £10,000 grant along with £10,000 worth of mentoring and accountancy advice from the firm, which has its regional headquarters in Ventura Park Road, Tamworth.

Both runners-up will be rewarded with £5,000 of mentoring and accountancy advice from Baldwins following the judges’ deliberations; which are made after each finalist gives a presentation to the 300-strong audience.

Stan Karpenko (25), co-founder of Give Vision, said the company was developing an app for Google glass which will act as ‘eyes’ for blind and visually impaired people.

A prototype has been developed which brings together facial recognition, converts text messages to sound, and highlights spatial awareness from pedestrian crossings to barriers.

He said: “Using advanced pattern recognition algorithms, our software engineers have “trained” Google Glass to recognise objects and text in real time.

“We are really passionate about developing an accessibility tool for visually impaired that can increase their independence and transform their quality of life.

“They will be able to walk down the street in confidence on their own or use public transport since they will recognise bus numbers or street names and if they are lost they can rely on the technology to get them to where they want to be.”

Ellie Bekalo (22) and Sam Wilson (23) launched Virtalent in July which provides online virtual assistant services to small businesses and start-ups.

The graduates from Aston University employ highly skilled university students in the UK to carry out tasks ranging from administration to marketing for a flexible number of hours.

Ms Bekalo said: “When you are an entrepreneur just starting a business, there might be an area that you struggle to develop. We can assign a student who is capable of assisting in that business area, so that the entrepreneur can concentrate on the value-adding aspects of their business.

“We have our first clients who are technology-based in Stoke and Basingstoke and we have a pool of students who we are using that can fit this work in around their studies.”

David Baldwin, a partner at Baldwins Accountants, said the young business owners had beaten some extremely talented candidates to reach the final.

“The finalists will present an overview of their business on the night to the audience and we want them to highlight their product or service, their future plans and their personality,” he said.