E-Lab Essay Competition 2024
Written by Rhys Williams
The King’s E-Lab Entrepreneurship Essay Competition is an initiative to encourage school-aged children to get excited about entrepreneurship. Open to final year students at UK-based schools, the competition highlights that an academic mind and an entrepreneurial spirit are not mutually exclusive but are instead skills which greatly complement one another. This belief embodies the ethos of the E-Lab, which aims to nurture entrepreneurial thinking and to encourage people to consider the potential of entrepreneurship, regardless of their background or their subject of study.
In the United States, many stories of success are underpinned by a high-level of interest and engagement in innovation – propelled by a wealth of enthusiasm from people who pursue both academia and entrepreneurship. Inspired by the outcomes of this enthusiasm, we wanted to encourage young people from across the UK to embrace a similar mindset and to plant the seed of entrepreneurial thinking in the younger generation. The essay competition thus provides the opportunity for students to properly engage with the meaning and potential of entrepreneurship as they prepare to leave school. Regardless of whether they hope to pursue higher education, apprenticeships, or their own entrepreneurial ventures, this competition urges them to consider the relevance of innovative thinking to all career avenues.
Not all students of this age will have thought about entrepreneurship before nor been encouraged or given the space to do so. In order to make the competition and the subject matter as engaging and accessible as possible, we frame the competition questions to allow students to discuss real-world examples of entrepreneurship and to analyse specific situations.
For the 2024 competition, we focused on three contemporary challenges in the world of entrepreneurship and innovation. First, on the ‘innovation trade-off’ between keeping up with trends whilst remaining profitable. Second, on the nature of social entrepreneurship. And, third, on the use of the gig economy. We had over 200 fantastic essays from students all over the country, from 130 different schools. The question on the innovation trade-off was the most popular, with 46% of students choosing to take on the issue. This was closely followed in popularity by the question on social entrepreneurship which made up 30% of submissions, and the remaining 24% of essays addressed the rise of the gig economy.
The questions were designed to get participants to think about entrepreneurship in the real world rather than to simply produce an academic-style article or an economics essay. We asked for submissions to be well-researched and supported by evidence, but we made clear that it did not need to contain fancy academic words, industry jargon or abstract concepts.
Instead, our judging panel preferred essays which tackled the question head on and which analysed the challenges and the opportunities that entrepreneurs face. We saw a range of approaches, from newspaper-style articles to students presenting their own entrepreneurial visions and ideas; even if such visions are just selling collectable cards in the playground (this particular essay had a great example of the challenges the writer faced but also the opportunities from a captive market!).
Successful essays were easy-to-read, supported by interesting case studies, and grounded by a consideration of the entrepreneurial aspects of each case, rather than by the reiteration of any one theoretical economic or philosophical perspective. For instance, for the innovation trade-off question, good essays provided examples of companies which have maintained a competitive advantage by innovating, even when this has proved costly. Examples such as Apple, Dyson, Netflix and even Timpson were discussed, and it was noted that innovation can range from upgrading existing products to bringing completely new products to market, in addition to behind-the-scenes processes of innovations. Innovation, students suggested, is important to stay ahead of competition, open up new markets, reach new consumer segments, and increase consumers’ willingness to pay for a good.
Such innovation however, as students went on to show, comes at a cost in terms of high R&D expenditure but also (occasionally) cannibalisation of existing cash-cows. Fear of ‘killing the cash-cow’ is a strong hindrance to innovation and several essays demonstrated this reality with the downfall of Blockbuster. Examples where companies have innovated heavily, but not succeeded, were also discussed, such as Coca Cola’s attempts to innovate with New Coke. These examples highlight that innovation is not always successful and that it does not guarantee survival. The examples employed by many students also emphasised the trial-and-error nature of innovation, something that is key to the success of good entrepreneurs.
The quality, as well as the number of submissions, was high. It was, therefore, a tall order to narrow the entries down to a shortlist of just 20 and, ultimately, to select the 3 winners who celebrated their hard-work at the prizegiving ceremony at King’s in November.
We offer a huge congratulations to Emily Ennis, the winner of this year’s competition, and to Maxim Cartledge and Keon Robert, the two runners-up, for their fantastic achievements!
The prizegiving was a brilliant opportunity to celebrate entrepreneurship at King’s. The event kicked off with a luncheon for the winners and their families, the E-Lab team, and several entrepreneurs from the Cambridge eco-system. Many stories were shared; inspiration a plenty for the next generation of budding entrepreneurs! We then moved to the awards ceremony, in the beautiful surroundings of the Provost’s Drawing Room, where one of our E-Lab Research Associates Nadia Mohd-Radzman presented the winners with their awards. The day concluded with photos around College and a tour of the Chapel, Keynes’ Set, and the Archives.
We would like to thank all those who have contributed to making this second edition of the essay competition a success: Kamiar Mohaddes, Kate Herrity, Monique Boddington, Zarja Hude, Nadia Mohd-Radzman, Coco Newton, Sophie Harbour, Patricia McGuire, the teachers and last, but certainly not least, all the brilliant students themselves!
Throughout the first quarter of the new year, we will post the 3 winning essays on our Mindsets blog to share the insights of this year’s winners. In the run-up to the April launch of the 2025 competition, we also hope that the essays serve as examples to interested students of what we look for in a submission. Between me and you though, if you’d like a bit of an early hint, essays which think outside the box and highlight the power of an entrepreneurial spirit are ultimately all we need!
Rhys Williams
Rhys Williams is a Senior Associate at the E-Lab and a 2nd year PhD student in Economics at the Judge Business School. He runs the E-Lab’s Essay Competition and Workshops program and can often be seen lifting heavy chairs at Speaker Series events. When Rhys isn’t helping with the E-Lab he is busy evaluating competition policies and investigating how to improve competition to improve the welfare of consumers.