SirTom:I toshake
SIR Tom Hunter believes children are the future – and he’s putting his money where his mouth is.
The Scots tycoon has launched a contest offering thousands of pounds to young people with ideas to positively shake up the country.
The Hunter Foundation’s 100 Disrupters competition is open to anyone up to the age of 26 who lives in Scotland.
Supporting the Year of Young People 2018, it will award 100 grants of £1000 to individuals or groups with the ambition to “positively disrupt” Scotland.
Sir Tom, 56, said: “Young people are far more in tune and far more ready to change, to take on new ideas, to embrace the change that’s coming with technology and frankly to understand it. Therefore they are the future, so we should be listening.
“Scotland’s young people need a voice and a channel to ensure they are the next generation of leaders and, importantly, that they are not just heard but their ideas embraced.”
The cash could go to help a sporting ambition, a business plan, charity promotion or community idea.
Sir Tom said: “There should be no limits to this. As long as it’s legal, let us know your ideas.”
The competition comes off the back of former US president Barack Obama’s visit to Scotland to speak at The Hunter Foundation (THF) event last year.
Schoolchildren who attended were asked what they would do if they ruled Scotland.
Sir Tom and Ewan Hunter, the CEO of THF, then visited the Glasgow school of competition winner Mila Stricevic to hear from her and her classmates what they thought about education.
He said: “To be honest, we were blown away – first of all by the maturity of the debate. It was a debate I’d have loved to have heard in the Scottish Parliament, to be frank.
“These young people who education is being done to had some very innovative ideas about what they wanted out of education.
“I was thinking, ‘If it was a business, you would listen to your customer. So the young people who are being educated, is anyone listening to them?’”
Ewan came up with the idea for the 100 Disrupters competition.
Sir Tom said: “Just sitting listening to that class, I learned an awful
There should be no limits to this. As long as it’s legal, let us know your ideas SIR TOM HUNTER