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Inspiring Entrepreneurs: Meet the Foodies


    This event brings together food business owners who have carved out their own unique spaces and are revolutionising the vibrant culinary world. From reimagining classic beans and crafting innovative ready meals, to blending diverse cultures through vegan Caribbean cuisine, West African snacks, and Mauritian restaurant experiences.

    From navigating a saturated market to promoting change, our panellists will share the highs and lows of their entrepreneurial journeys, offering valuable insights and practical advice.

    On the day, you can expect to:

    • hear first-hand accounts of building a food business from the ground up, including overcoming obstacles and celebrating wins
    • learn how to creatively build a loyal and growing social media following and generate revenue
    • discuss the challenges and opportunities of operating a food business in today's market, including adapting to changing trends and consumer preferences
    • explore innovative approaches to scaling and sustaining a thriving food business
    • uncover the growing importance of health and wellness within the food industry
    • see how cultural backgrounds are transformed into valuable opportunities for new customer markets
    • connect with fellow food enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and our speakers
    • enjoy a delicious product tasting from one of our featured speakers.

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From Start-up to Household Brand (with Q&A)


Part of Start-up Day 2024

Starting a business can be a roller-coaster journey. In this session you'll find out how to build a successful and sustainable brand from your kitchen table. Martha Keith, British Library BIPC Business Ambassador and founder of the Martha Brook stationery brand, will host a fireside chat with Charlie Bigham, founder of the eponymous food brand to delve into his story of building the fastest growing grocery brand in the UK. Together they'll shed light on the grit behind the glamour of entrepreneurship and arm you with all the facts you need to decide whether starting a business is right for you. You’ll also come away with the key strategies that can help you to stay focused on creating work that you love that fits in with your life goals and aligns with your purpose.

Start-up Day 2021

The Business & IP Centre’s Start-up Day is back for 2021, during Global Entrepreneurship Week, with involvement from over 30 libraries around the UK and over 50+ speakers.

10.00 – 10.04 Lord Parkinson
10.05 – 10.15 Introduction from Dr Joanna Abeyie MBE
10.15 – 10.55 How to understand sustainability trends in the UK right now
11.00 – 11.02 2 minute silence
11.05 – 11.50 The Remakery - Surplus materials, workspace and ecosystem
11.10 – 11.55 BIPC Glasgow – Making a difference – starting and running a business with environmental impact
11.15 – 12.05 Introduction to intellectual property
11.55 – 12.40 Sustainable in the City
12.00 – 12.25 BIPC Norfolk – The Regenerative Business Revolution – Entrepreneurs wanted!
12.10 – 12.45 Getting started with sustainable photography
12.30 – 13.05 Lunch and learn – swap skills for starting-up
12.45 – 13.30 Santander - The Business of Sustainability
13.00 – 13.30 How to put sustainability at the heart of your business
13.10 – 13.55 BIPC Liverpool City Region – The power of sustainable business
13.35 – 14.20 The Sustainable Start-up: building climate conscious principles into your business from day one
13.45 – 13.55 Santander key notes
14.00 – 14.45 BIPC Cambridgeshire & Peterborough - Getting real with sustainability
14.25 – 15.15 Circular Economy Panel: prosperity in a world of finite resources
14.40 – 15.15 BIPC Northamptonshire – Doing good and making money
15.00 – 15.45 Community as a service
15.20 – 16.05 A guide to sustainable business with the British Library
15.25 – 15.55 BIPC Greater Manchester – Is a co-operative business model right for your business
16.00 – 16.50 Sustainability oh so white
16.00 – 16.45 BIPC North East – Developing a sustainable/green brand

You only need to register once to get access to the full day of events. You can then choose which sessions you attend.

Business headshot editing service
What you need to do:

Select your head shot photograph.
Compose an email with the image attached.
Put your name in the subject field (so we can keep track of the images).
In the email let us know what you might want changing, e.g. cropping to square or resizing to reduce the file size, making black and white, adjusting the exposure/brightness etc. Or just let us decide.
Send to BIPC@samlanephotography.co.uk
We will then adjust your image as requested – or ‘touch it up’ as we would recommend.
And then we will email it back to you as soon as we possibly can, and certainly within 24 hours.



Don’t forget to follow #BIPCStartUpDay across social media to keep updated on what all of our speakers have to say throughout the day.

BIPC Hull's Building an effective website

Join BIPC Hull with Creator Coach, Mal Williamson, to understand how to build an effective website.

In our age digital technology and the internet has revolutionized the way we live and work, creating a hotbed of online platforms for start-ups to consider. In this session, we explore the world of websites and ‘the internet of entrepreneurs’. A website can be many things. It can tell a story, share values, be a conversation, a marketplace, a testing facility. Every entrepreneur knows they need a website… don’t they? But what exactly is a website these days?

In this webinar we will cover:
Different websites for different reasonsBuilding an effective website that works for youCustomizing the processTesting the market with landing pagesHow to work with creatives and get the most out of web designers, copywriters, graphic designers and codersDo you really need a website and what are the alternatives?

Lunch and learn – swap skills for starting-up


Do you ever find it hard to ask for help? What if you could swap something you were good at in exchange for support in the subject you need it in most.

Just like swapping pre-loved clothes and goods, come along to swap and share your experiences and expertise. Set up in the early weeks of the initial lockdown last year, local entrepreneurs and friends, Rachel Hayward and Lee Marples, formed a not-for-profit to revive the fun and informality from the seventies show, The Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. The idea is simple – register online and get to meet other people looking to progress and learn in a peer-to-peer community.

From its beginnings in Derby, then to Nottingham and Leicester, the digital marketplace is now UK-wide and sees hundreds of new swaps posted monthly.

You might be looking for someone to help set up a new Instagram account for you and can offer up a monthly cake selection box from your baking business in return? Or even swap copy-writing for accounting?

Join us for this special, interactive session over lunchtime where we invite you to listen in and consider how to work with, and help, one another.

We’re looking to seal some deals and build up your support network.

Inspiring Entrepreneurs: The Changing Face of Fashion


The fashion industry has always been subject to rapid change and fast-evolving trends and the last few years have been no exception.

Faced with major disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, fashion offers many examples of innovation and exciting change in the face of difficult circumstances. Some of these changes stand to have a huge impact on the way we live our lives.

The current cost-of-living crisis is poised to shift attitudes once again, as some 48% of consumers say that rising prices are making them more aware of the importance of sustainable fashion and re-wearing their items.*

This year, the UK is set to become the first European nation where most clothing is bought online.** From this steep rise in online shopping to fashion shows powered by AI to a shift in attitudes to fast fashion, this is an exciting market to be a part of when you know its next direction.

This event will help you understand emergent trends in fashion and how to make them work for your business. At this event, you will:

Understand the reality of starting a fashion brand as an SME in today’s changing market and how the cost of living crisis is impacting brands’ supply chain, sales and growth
Learn how sustainability in the fashion industry has grown, changed and even evolved since 2020. What can we learn from manufacturers changing ways of working and sourcing in exchange for orders?
Understand why there is a greater need for transparency since the pandemic
Learn about new trends in fashion and how forecasting within the industry has been affected
Explore often unrecognised parts of the industry such as the rise of craft and how home-sewing has grown since the 2020 lockdown. Learn how to leverage the power of crafts to develop an online presence
Learn about the growth in interest in new fashion regions, such as the rise of African designers
Understand how the future of fashion with the rise of digital fashion or AI, VR and 3D printing.

About our panel:

You will hear from a panel of industry experts who will talk about their personal experiences and share their wealth of knowledge on the fashion industry and its future.

Orsola de Castro is an internationally recognised opinion leader in sustainable fashion, a mentor, curator and author. Her multi award-winning brand From Somewhere (1997 – 2014) was a pioneer in the field of upcycling and sold in some of the world’s best boutiques; her collaborations include collections for Tesco Clothing, Robe Di Kappa, Topshop and Speedo.

Priscillia Okpan is a Nigerian fashion designer and digital content creator based in London. After interning with established fashion brands to gather industry experience, she started her fashion YouTube channel, Kim Dave. She has amassed over 420k subscribers and 22 million views. She launched a ready-to-wear womenswear label in 2019 which celebrates her Nigerian roots.

Lora Nikolaeva (aka GENE) is the CEO and founder of Lora Gene, an accomplished fashion entrepreneur with international experience. Bulgarian born and raised, now based in London, she entered the fashion world to support her studies working as a model.

After several years on the road and across continents, she started a successful career as a make-up artist, founding the first make-up and hair agency in Eastern Europe. As the business grew it transformed into a clothing brand, which opened its first retail store in central Sofia in 2010. Lora Gene is recognised as one of the best sustainable and ethical fashion brands in the UK, with publications in Vogue, InStyle, The Stylist, the Independent, Guardian and many more.

Patrick McDowell is an independent, sustainable luxury brand founded in 2018 by designer Patrick McDowell. After graduating from the prestigious Central Saint Martins, McDowell has strived to reinvent the role of a fashion designer, as we know it today. Showcasing his debut collection at London Fashion Week in 2018, the designer has since captivated the industry whilst gaining the recognition of titans who share Patrick’s vision for redesigning and creating an accessible circular solution and system that creativity can flourish in.

Justin Duffy has worked in product design for 10+ years across highstreet (Next, River), sport (Puma), streetwear (Money Clothing) and outdoor categories (Rohan). Now working on the mindset team at WGSN – a trend forecasting company – Justin uses his understanding of the design process and a love for cutting edge creativity to explore new growth opportunities across fashion and lifestyle categories.


Fireside chat:

Patrick Grant has had a career in fashion spanning over a decade. In 2005, after leaving a career in Engineering, he took over as Director at Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons. In December 2010 he won the Menswear Designer of the Year award at the British Fashion Awards and in May 2015 he was awarded the BFC/ GQ Designer Menswear Fund for his work on menswear brand E. Tautz which he re-launched in 2009.

Frequently appearing in best dressed lists in the UK, he has been a regular fixture in GQ’s 50 Best Dressed Men and was also named in Esquire Magazine’s Most Stylish Men in the World. In 2016 he made the Business of Fashion 500 index of the most influential people in global fashion. Patrick is a regular on television and radio as a commentator on the British fashion, clothing and textile industries.

He has been a contributor to several major television documentaries including Savile Row, Harris Tweed, and The Perfect Suit, but is best known for his role in the popular BBC Series The Great British Sewing Bee, for which he was nominated for the 2017 National Television Awards.

He has written on diverse subjects for many titles including GQ, The Financial Times and The Times. His book ‘Original Man’ was published by Gestalten in 2014. He is a regular lecturer at schools and colleges across the UK.

Michael Cashman

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