We heard inspirational stories from guest speaker entrepreneurs who had successfully completed their journey interspersed with pitches from the finalists all of whom demonstrated no shortage of creative flare, energy and passion of their own.  Listening to them some common themes began to emerge including:

• Concern for personal safety – a number of the finalists had developed products aimed at enhancing personal safety. For example, personal illumination for cyclists/motorcyclists; reflective clothing for pedestrians and detection of harmful levels of radon in buildings.

• Ways of utilizing social media to make life better – social media has become so pervasive and influential that more and more entrepreneurs are spotting ways to use it to deliver better, more satisfying life experiences for their peers. Among these were: a safe, intuitive way for people to meet like-minded individuals in bars and clubs; last minute promotions at events and in restaurants; twitter-driven ad campaigns that cut out expense of using creative agencies; simulated interactive motor racing for adults; a more effective way to search for ski holidays; software to inspire the imaginations of young children into creating their own stories.

• The emergence of social enterprise – companies whose sole purpose is to serve their communities and society at large. Representatives here included: a charity project aimed at helping struggling families in Newquay; two ideas aiming to improve finance/numeracy among children and adults by making it fun; children’s books featuring positive role models in business to encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs; an audio version of Twitter for the vision-impaired.

• Finally there were examples of good old fashioned innovation such as: flight bags to transform business travel; advertising space on takeaway coffee cup holders; innovative maternity clothing; a lubricated applicator for fitting surgical stockings to prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis.

Certainly the business pitches made to the judges were of a very high calibre. I personally found it found it all very inspiring and a little bit of Christmas for the brain.  Deciding on a top five and eventual winner was no easy task.  Finally, after much deliberation, propertECO , the company that tests buildings for cancer-causing radon, was chosen as the competition winner.

It was particularly thrilling to see Rebecca Coates, co-founder of propertCEO, crowned the champion, as she became the first female winner of The Pitch since the competition’s inception in 2008!  In fact, women entrepreneurs were well represented in this year’s competition, earning 10 out of the 30 finalists.

Congratulations to Rebecca and all the finalists!  In fact everyone taking part deserved to be considered winners for creating a display of ingenuity and inventiveness that may one day benefit all our lives.  Photographs capturing the atmosphere of the event have been uploaded to the AVG Flickr account and may be viewed here.

I’ll close by saying; AVG’s active participation in the year-long competition was an extremely positive experience. Perhaps most important of all, it has provided AVG with an invaluable platform to engage directly with the small business community. And, hopefully we have started to make a lasting impression on their consciousness.

To sum up, the real winner is……all of us!