Malachi Gilmour and the BiG Challenge
When Malachi Gilmour, a student at Holgate Meadows School, entered the BiG Challenge enterprise competition last year, little did he know how far it could take him!
Mal is a keen photographer so this was the obvious choice for his business Torched Views, which sells prints of photos taken and edited by Mal himself from across Sheffield and beyond. See it Be it in Sheffield provided a £25 start up loan for Mal, who used the money to print the images and sell them in school and at events such as our BiG Challenge Moor Market Extravaganza. He was supported by Holgate Meadows Assistant Head and Careers Leader Adele Hetherington, and his volunteer Business Adviser Chris Lawlor from Sheffield City Council.
When the awards ceremony came around in March, Mal was not only a winner in the Creativity category, he also was a joint winner of the overall BiG Prize!
The prize for the Creativity award, which was sponsored by the National Videogame Museum, was an invitation to a ‘Curator Experience’, exploring behind the scenes at the Museum and taking part in a ‘Star Object’ Workshop. Mal and a friend toured the museum, played some of the games and then chose an object to research and wrote an interpretation to be displayed in the museum.
For the BiG Prize, Mal won a £500 Virgin Experience voucher, which he spent on a family trip to Alton Towers, and he hopes to use the remainder to go swimming with sharks in the spring!
Mal loved being part of the BiG Challenge and said “it’s been brilliant for building my confidence and I’ve loved seeing how many people have supported me”. Not only is he entering again this year, Mal has also agreed to support one of the other teams from his school as a peer mentor, sharing his newfound expertise.
Mal is growing his business for this year, looking at new ways of advertising online, and developing new products like Christmas cards and framed / mounted prints. He’s also giving back to the community by donating a percentage of his profits to the charity Ben’s Centre.
Adele thinks taking part has been a brilliant opportunity for Malachi to develop his skills and said “I’ve been so impressed with how Mal has grown in confidence taking part in the challenge, and how he has run with it entirely off his own back this year, adapting the business and applying what he has learnt”.
You can follow Mal’s journey on his blog and if you’d like to support the BiG Challenge and / or students like Mal, get in touch on seeitbeit@sheffield.gov.uk.
