Mayor's Fund for London and Elena Baturina's Be Open Highlight Creativity and Business Acumen of the Capital's School Children

City Pitch, supported by Be Open, the international think-tank founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Elena Baturina, encourages and helps young Londoners to step up as leaders, learn new skills, and make a real difference in their communities. Today's event saw them deliver presentations to a panel of expert judges - including Be Open's Ms Baturina, in a Dragon's Den-style event to secure £1,500 funding to help launch and run their projects.

City Pitch, supported by Be Open, the international think-tank founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Elena Baturina, encourages and helps young Londoners to step up as leaders, learn new skills, and make a real difference in their communities.

Today's event saw them deliver presentations to a panel of expert judges - including Be Open's Ms Baturina, in a Dragon's Den-style event to secure £1,500 funding to help launch and run their projects.

The six schools reached today's City Pitch finals after being chosen from dozens of the capital's schools earlier in the year. The school teams each delivered a 10-minute presentation to the judges in front of fellow pupils, teachers, the media and other City Hall dignitaries.  

The six schools and their projects were:

Be Open's founder Elena Baturina says: "Today I was immensely impressed by the creativity, thought and planning that went into every presentation. Many of the children are still at primary school, yet showed maturity and confidence when presenting to a room full of adults, and their peers. It's this kind of skill that makes me very confident that the next generation will be more than prepared to meet the challenge of successfully working together to improve their own lives, and those of people in their communities. City Pitch helps them take creative community project ideas and turn them into real social enterprises - a major step in creating leaders of tomorrow."