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Business ‘Dragon’ fired up to help Children 1st

Business ‘Dragon’ fired up to help Children 1st

A Dundee “Dragon” has been inspiring local businesses to take part in an enterprising challenge to raise funds for Children 1st.

At a ceremony on Wednesday night it was revealed some of Scotland’s top businesses have raised almost £60,000 for Children 1st by taking part in the charity’s corporate fundraiser.

As the former CEO of online publishing business brightsolid as well as chairman of the studio that produced wildly successful versions of Minecraft, Chris Van Der Kuyl is one of Scotland’s leading entrepreneurs and he was also a member of the Dundee City of Culture bid team.

He said when he heard about Dragon’s Glen he thought it was a great idea and had to get involved.

Based on the popular TV show Dragons’ Den, the teams from businesses based in Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow worked with dragon mentors from the top flights of industry and business education to turn a starting sum of £500 into £5,000 or more for vulnerable children.

Mr Van Der Kuyl said: “I thought it was really clever as for the organisations involved it is a great team building, corporate development challenge that the charity is offering to fund.”

In total £58,860 was raised through a variety of enterprising means with Aberdeen-based Wood Group PSN taking first prize by turning £500 into a £21,486 in just five months.

The team produced a desk calendar selling sponsorship for each month and additional advertising space for weekend days.

The charity benefits from the money raised and can also use the finished ideas and projects to continue to raise money themselves.

Mr Van Der Kuyl said some of the ideas could be taken on and marketed easily, like the card game created by Dundee team Insights which he was mentoring.

He said: “The idea has got great potential. You have your normal 52 cards, then you have a set of archetype cards with characters on.

“Some of the games ask players to explore what card they most identify themselves with.

“That’s a game the charity can produce forever and it ties in well with what Children 1st is all about.”

Children 1st will be recruiting companies for Dragons’ Glen 2014 in the autumn and Mr Van Der Kuyl said he will be involved and is encouraging other to join in too.

He said: “We are not looking for people who are already running a business to run another business.

“People surprise themselves and the whole point is to try a new challenge.

“The work Children 1st does is invaluable and unfortunately desperately needed.

“As long as there are children who need this service we need to do anything we can to support them and their vital work.”