14 - 20 December 2000

Promoting youth in business

David Darmanin, project manager of the student business plan competition, StartUp Malta, talks to Blanche Gatt about fulfilling ambition

If you have been seduced by success once it is difficult to leave it behind you. And with business, the promise of reward is great enough to ensure that there is always a posse of hopefuls waiting on the sidelines to grasp their moment. With David Darmanin, a 19-year old second-year law student, winning the 1998 Young Enterprise European Award as a member of the Omicron team gave him a taste for business building that he’s dedicating all his free time towards replicating.
And so StartUp Malta was born, a business plan competition that requires participants to conceive of a viable business idea, prepare a professional business plan and then
present their plan to a panel of adjudicators, as though they were attempting to win financing from a venture capitalist or investment bank.
David is not only at the helm of this project, but has been the catalyst for its actually happening from the beginning. “As a summer intern with iWORLD group,’ explained David, I was asked to prepare a paper to delineate how iWORLD Group could get involved with university. I identified a number of student organisations that I felt could be possible collaborators, and set up a few meetings. Our first meeting was with AISEC, and we mentioned the idea of running a business plan competition along the lines that similar competitions are run in universities abroad, and they agreed to participate with us. I agreed to take it on as project manager, and since then I have been working flat out at it.’
David has managed to win the support of two well-established student network organisations to add more weight to his project – AISEC and IAESTE. He is also enlisted the support of PriceWaterhouseCoopers Malta, Vodafone and VideoOnLine, who are all offering sponsorship in the form of services and funding.
Besides these invaluable sponsorships, he has also had to mobilise a team of willing volunteers from out of the ranks of his fellow university students; young people willing and able to give up a social life and other leisure activities in order to be a part of this ambitious project.
“Well,” commented David, “we now have eight people working on StartUp Malta; though I engineered the first stage completely on my own, writing the business plan and sorting out the logistics, eventually I needed to find a group of volunteers to help me out. None of us are paid for our work.
“I do it because having taken part in Young Enterprise in 1998 and experienced the access to new perspectives on making money, business and building reputations, I think it will be an extremely valuable experience for me. It opened up a new way of thinking for me and hopefully through this project we are also opening up new horizons for ourselves and other students too.
“Andreas Gerdes, CEO of iWORLD Group always says that a university education is important, but it is far from enough. What you need to succeed are three elements: an education, experience and attitude. And this is what I’m learning through my work on StartUp Malta.”
David’s volunteers include a representative from AISEC, B.Comm. student Odette Vella; a representative from IAESTE, BSc.IT student Derek Pisani; Nicky Portelli, a second-year law student; Paul Felice, first-year law; Tiziana Ceci, second-year B.Pharm; Erika Caruana, second-year law; and Mark Briffa, first-year Communications.
“When it came to the planning,” David said, “I did the business plan on my own. Before I could present it to anyone I had to have a framework in my mind, so I spent September and October and part of November formulating the business plan, including how to market the project, the cost, the adjudication... all the details were included.
“Then I went on to present it to iWORLD for them to see how it was going along because of course I was seeking investment from them. A project like this needs cash, consultancy and office support apart from actual funding. Once iWORLD had approved it, I presented it to AISEC and IAESTE who also approved the project and agreed to support it. This was enormously valuable because without their support I would not have the network throughout the student community that they as an established organisations can offer.”
The competition is an exciting challenge for students to take up. Applications closed yesterday, and StartUp Malta has received over
80 applications from interested
students. As a full time student, however, the enormity of the task of organising this competition, the launch, publicity, marketing and logistics took a heavy toll on David’s free time. “The situation,” said David, “is that Start Up Malta overlaps with my student life, so I work on it at university during breaks, free periods and so on, and then carry on for a few hours at the iWORLD group office, which has been made available to our team by iWORLD management as part of their
support.
“Any way, most of the work was done in summer but to say the truth I don’t exactly cope – it’s more a question of coping with not coping.
Studies at the moment are not top on my list of priorities – but this job teaches how to make priorities. In the period before exam time, when it becomes critical to study, university always takes priority.”
“From now on,” said David, “the competition starts in earnest. The next step, which will come in the second week of January, is that we will be organising a workshop moderated by representatives of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and iWORLD Group to teach the students how to write a concept paper.
“We’ll also explain to all participants exactly how the rest of the competition rolls out to April. After that the students will be asked to put their ideas down on paper and deliver them to us by a certain deadline. The adjudicating panel will choose 20 teams to continue to the next phase of the competition.
“We stop for the exam period, then in the first week of February we’ll have another workshop where PriceWaterhouseCoopers will explain how to plan out and write a proper business idea. Once again they will have to produce their plan by a certain deadline, and six finalists will be chosen. These last six teams will pass on to another workshop on how to present a business case and win financing – they’re given a chance to refine their business plan and prepare the presentation, and then they’ll appear in front of the adjudicating panel to present their cases as though they were presenting to a venture capitalist. The winner of the final will be awarded Lm1,000 in cash.”
StartUpMalta offers students, whether participants, unsuccessful candidates or simply interested individuals, several on-line services to help them develop a familiarity with business case writing, business practices and networking.
“In fact,” said David, “we have set up an on-line laboratory, iGetBizzy.com, which offers access to documents, articles and layout offered by Vogue Quality Printers, as well as StartUpSupport, a Q & A site, and a newsletter. Networking is offered through the iGetBuzzy area, which is not only work-related, but includes things like parties, and other social events. The first event was held on 1 December at Axis, and it was enormously successful.”
David’s energy and passion have helped him push his project through the ideas stage, to financing and finally implementing. As tens of students sit down to create their own enterprising business cases, David is fully aware that many of them will be infected with his own enthusiasm.
“Learning how to expand your horizon is the most valuable lesson I was ever taught,” he smiled in conclusion. “Now I’m just really exciting about being able to open these experiences to others.”