Young entrepreneurs venture into Dragons Den

Albany Senior High School's Girl Boss pitch their ideas at AUT's Auckland campus.

Young entrepreneurs from across Auckland have ventured into the 'Dragons Den' this week, pitching their ideas to panels of business people as part of the Lion Foundation's Young Enterprise Scheme.

The pitches took place at Auckland University of Technology's central Auckland campus.

Educational start up Girl Boss along with Brightlife, Chopped NZ, Spice Boys and Arahina took out the top spots in Sanitarium's 2016 Young Enterprise Scheme.

The five teams with varied business ideas included producing spicy mayonnaise, promoting education and skills, designing and creating lyrca shirts, creating basic websites for small businesses and making chopping boards from recycled timber.

Team winners - year 12 and year 13 Auckland students - aim to learn how to set up and run their own businesses for a year.

Each winning team received prize money of $1000.

The Young Enterprise programme pushes students beyond the normal classroom boundaries, encouraging them to develop business skills through practical activities such as the Dragons Den-styled pitch competition.

More than 300 students from 51 teams took part in the scheme with a total of five regional winners.

The regional winners:

North Auckland:

• Girl Boss - Albany Senior High School - aims to inspire New Zealand girls to develop their science, technology, engineering skills.

Central Auckland:

• Brightlife - ACG Parnell College - makes lycra cycling shirts with LED lighting sewn in.

South Auckland:

• Chopped NZ - Waiuku College - creates chopping boards made from recycled timber.

East Auckland:

• Spice Boys - Ormiston Senior College - makes spicy mayonnaise based on a traditional family recipe.

West Auckland:

Arahina - Titirangi Rudolf Steiner - designs basic brochure-style websites for small business owners.