Launchpad, London Met’s flagship business startup programme gives students and graduates the knowledge, tools, support and momentum needed to fast track a business idea into a viable startup venture. This year’s Launchpad programme has seen its most diverse group ever form from the students and graduates taking part! Our 2019 Launchpad cohort of passionate early-stage entrepreneurs come from a total of 16 countries from around the world, including South America, North America, Zimbabwe and the Netherlands.

Launchpad kicked off this year in late June with an intensive 2-day Bootcamp. The introductory Bootcamp days gave the students and graduates a deep dive into the key aspects of the programme which focuses on problems and solutions, the potential outcomes of Launchpad and what they should expect from the next 13 weeks.

We were pleased to offer guaranteed places on the programme to our 2019 Big Idea Challenge winners, including our grand champion winner George Kelly and our People’s choice winning team Drink-U-Bator.

George Kelly’s Idea The Write Path is a 12-week course for troubled teens facing school eviction, helping them focus through the art of fiction. While Drink-U-Bator is creating a new focused accelerator programme to help inventors bring new products to market and launch into the drinks industry. Other Big Idea finalists continuing to develop their ideas this summer include Mary’s Recipes, an app which offers busy families with personalised menus and balanced diet focused recipes, convenient weekly diet plans and complete shopping lists.

Our 2019 Big Idea Creative category winners Rachel Godin and Elise Harrison, the creative duo behind HAUS OF are pushing forward with their idea of repurposing clay, wood and people’s lives through offering pottery and furniture workshops to homeless people. JOBLOCK Founder Blessing is using his personal past experience as a contractor to help him create a digital wallet that enables users to source, own and instantly share their own job references with their next employer. As getting references can be slow and cost contractors time, money and potentially their dream job. The Play Maps team are returning to develop their business that helps children learn about their local neighbourhood through fun and educational location-specific play rugs.