Southampton Society SIFE wins national competition and goes global

Southampton society SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) Southampton, has recently won a National Competition to represent UK students in a worldwide final.

SIFE is not your average society. Set up in 2009, they run social projects and businesses both locally and abroad, with the aim of changing lives. Some of their projects include setting up family businesses in Madagascar, and creating a finance scheme to help poor African families. These projects have had a life-changing effect on over 700 people in the poorest parts of the world.

This year's winning team

SIFE UK, the organisation who support teams around the country, describe their aims:

To bring together the top leaders of today and tomorrow to create a better, more sustainable world through the positive power of business.

SIFE Southampton President Jack Stanbury, who was also named UK Team Leader of the Year at the National Competition held in Canary Wharf, said:

Winning SIFE has been our team’s ultimate goal for the past two years. It’s the real-life experience of creating and running business programmes in a socially responsible way that has transformed the way I think about my future.

Needless to say, these guys are very employable. A lot of companies have started to notice this as well – it’s not uncommon for students involved to be offered jobs on the spot at the competition, in companies large and small.

The group has been strongly supported by Southampton’s Student Enterprise Officer, Helena Schulze, who was a SIFE student herself at the Curtin University of Technology, Australia. She was part of the SIFE World Cup winning team in 2004, held in Barcelona – the first team to ever beat the U.S.

The competition runs in 39 countries all over the world, so our Southampton team will be off to compete in the World Cup with with the best societies across the world in Kuala Lumpur. We wish them the best of luck in representing the empire!