Young social entrepreneurs crowned Future 100 winners

One hundred of the most innovative young social entrepreneurs have been crowned winners of the Striding Out Future 100.

At the British Library last night, at one of the last events of Social Enterprise Day 2010, Striding Out CEO Heather Wilkinson announced the third wave of the Future 100, all aged between 18-35.

Ten of the 100 were highly commended, including Lauren Craig of Thinking Flowers? and Joseph Mulhearn of Little League Sports CIC. More information about these top ten can be found by following the links at the bottom of this story.

The Future 100 were picked by a host of social enterprise experts, including Henry Palmer, director of Society Media, the parent company of Social Enterprise.

The evening’s celebration heard from Peter Holbrook, CEO of the Social Enterprise Coalition and Charlotte Borger, head of communications at Divine Chocolate. Duncan Sloan, head of community banking at RBS, the main sponsor of the night, also addressed the crowd, along with Jessica Medling, head of content and digital projects at The Media Trust, a social enterprise offering communications support to fledgling social business, which is offering support to some of the Future 100 winners.

Wilkinson, introduced as having changed the lives of 4,500 young people through its UK-wide coaching, commended the winners and said: ‘I’ve been running a social enterprise for five years, so I know how it takes over your life.

‘But when I had coaching, I thought why isn’t this being used, why is it not helping young people. Now I have developed a network of coaches, have 25 staff and a £1m turnover.’

Holbrook, who had spent the morning lobbying MPs to support the social values bill, said he was thrilled to share Social Enterprise Day and the movement with the next generation of social entrepreneurs.

‘What’s inspiring for me is to see a tsunami of a new generation of social entrepreneurs,’ he said.

‘There’s nothing more inspiring then going out and hearing people talk about their dreams of social justice and social change.’

Holbrook also said that new research from Enterprise UK showed that 82 per cent of young people believes that businesses have a role to play in social and environmental change.

Find out more about the Future 100 at www.future100.co.uk

Top ten highly commended Future 100 winners:

John Chard-Young – Adrenaline Alley

Carlo Montesanti – Bee Guardian Foundation

Tom Ravenscroft – Enabling Enterprise

Laura Rudow – Evolve Beauty Good Venture

Tom Chance – Give A Car

Joseph Mulhearn – Little League Sports CIC

Thomas Jeffs – ResponsibleIT CIC

Alan Ramsay – Roots and Wings CIC

James Eder – The Beans Group

Lauren Craig – Thinking Flowers?