A GROUP of five budding business leaders from Tong High School were among the speakers at a global conference.

The sixth-formers travelled to Edinburgh to speak at the WildHearts Junior Global Entrepreneurial Leaders (GEL) Conference at the RBS Gogarburn headquarters.

The Westgate Hill Street-based site won the national schools’ category Micro-Tyco Enterprise Challenge mentored by staff from the Deloitte Leeds office and school staff in February this year.

The school also finished third in the overall competition globally, having generated £3657.06 from just a £1 investment from the WildHearts charity.

This led the Tong High School students to be invited to speak as part of the keynote section of the conference.

The group talked about winning the competition, their involvement and impact and also encouraging others to take part in the Micro-Tyco challenge. Last year, the first WildHearts Global Entrepreneurial Leaders’ Summit brought together some of the world’s leading Corporate, Social and Founding Entrepreneurs.

Following on from the success of the GEL conference, WildHearts hosted a junior version, the Junior GEL, which aims to enable young people to meet up and experience the power of entrepreneurship as a catalyst for social and economic change.

Trude Feiweles, associate headteacher at Tong High School, said: “We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to share our experience at the Junior GEL conference.

“This is an incredible opportunity for our students.

“The students worked extremely hard on this enterprise project in February and the opportunity enabled them to practice and learn fundamental business concepts in a micro-environment.

“Throughout this process and beyond, our students have been inspired to learn and have developed their entrepreneurial thinking.

“We are grateful to staff from the Deloitte Leeds office that supported and coached students through the enterprise challenge.”

During the Edinburgh event, held on September 9, students also took part in a questions and answers session on stage which was hosted by Mick Jackson, founder of WildHearts & Micro-Tyco. Mr Jackson visited the Bradford school in March this year to personally award and congratulate students.

He said: “Micro-Tyco is pioneering inner change, local change and global change through compassionate entrepreneurship.

“It unites everyone from our children to our corporate executives with the vision that business can and must be a force for good.

“The outstanding effort from Tong High School will fund 73 micro-businesses in the developing world every year, while inspiring school children across the UK to become Global Ethical Investors too.”