The Livery Academy Award Finals were held last night (1st February 2022) at the Mansion House.

Established in 2013, the Livery Academy Awards are designed to foster entrepreneurial and presentation skills among sixth-form students as well as build links between Livery Company members and the Academies with whom their Company is associated. In our case, those schools are Haberdashers' Hatcham College, Haberdashers' Knights Academy, Haberdashers' Crayford Academy, all part of the Haberdashers' Academies Trust South in SE London, and Haberdashers' Abraham Darby, part of the Adams' Federation in Telford, Shropshire (this year's finalists).

Teams from each school develop and present a pitch to investors to raise up to (a hypothetical) £500,000 to launch a product or service that they think will be not only commercially successful in the UK, but also generate a material social benefit for target customers and/or society as a whole.

The hugely talented Habs Abraham Darby team's business, Generous Gym, was based on the ingenious idea of using gym participants' own energy from working out to provide eco-friendly power to both benefit the planet and cut energy cost overheads.

All the teams gave enormously impressive presentations (all based on green intiatives) and the overall winners were the Thomas Adams School (supported by the Worshipful Company of Drapers) for their business O-Pen, fully recyclable pens made from recycled plastic found on beaches. 

Many congratulations to all the participants - you all did superbly!