How women can use technology to change the game in creativity, hair and beauty.

Founder of Niyo Enterprise Oyinkansola (Oyin) Adebayo and Olaoluwa (Laolu)Dada have spent two years innovating and empowering women through their women focused brand that uses hair as a tool to economically empower women – Niyo Enterprise. 

Black Hairdressing has been used as a significant tool the Afro-Caribbean community has used to support themselves economically, the creativity and culture around getting your hair done in the black community has opened doors for economic empowerment and career development for many. Oyin and Laolu took their social enterprise model business which provided training, teaching and empowerment events to black hair, beauty and business enthusiasts, and have innovated into a tech business. 

Rods and Brushes, Roods and Bushels - How Chimney sweeping helped fund my passion for history

Starting a business can often come with an initial set-up cost but the B-Enterprising team are currently looking to help University of Birmingham businesses with an offer for £500 funding.

One of the latest individuals to be helped from the Start-Up Fund is Medievel History student Darrin Gamble who has started a chimney sweeping business called  'As Daft as a Brush'.

Darrin initially started this business to fund his Masters course and talks about his new life as a chimney sweep whilst enjoying his passion of history.

We caught up with Darrin to brush up on his story - to find out about his passion for history and the added benefits to trying something new in chinney sweeping.

Why November is a good time to start your business...

November is always an exciting time of the year - as we leave behind the thrills and treats of Hallowe'en we enter a month of dark nights, firework skies and red and yellow leaves littering and decorating the streets of Birmingham.

This is also a great month of opportunity if you are thinking of starting a business or considering freelancing. Forget February and Valentine's day, we think November is the real month of love so we have highlighted 5 things to get excited at this November.....Will you be tempted?

Shouting about Birmingham - An entrepreneurs vision to attract new brummies

Wei Wu completed a PhD in Business Management at the University of Birmingham and has now started a company called WeiPoint after obtaining a Tier 1 start-up visa:

My company WeiPoint offers a digital calendar service to highlight the best things to do in
Birmingham. We challenge the stereotype that Birmingham is not the funnest place to stay and we
support the local foreigners to explore this city better.

Compare with other event organising service, we are not selling tickets and charging the surplus of payment. We only collect the events around the regional city and present to the users with their preference. We aim to establish the local events portal for 'new brummies'.

Start-up visa - JingJing Huo gives her top tips for starting a UK business

Jingjing Huo graduated with a taught masters degree in Management in 2015. The B-Enterprising team recently caught up with Jingjing and asked her for her tips to help future entrepreneurs looking to apply for the Start-up visa.

'My company is called UK-CN Cultural Exchange Ltd and it offers piano summer camp for chinese students aged 6-14. The company also arrange for UK piano musicians to come to China for commercial concerts and master classes. There is also a web cast piano course available for teenagers and piano teachers.'

How the start-up visa led me to business opportunities in London

We caught up with Saket Gautam who graduated in 2014 after studying Business Administration. Saket successfully applied for the Start-up visa (formerly known as a Tier 1 visa) and has since gone on to set up multiple businesses in London.

Saket reflects back at his start-up journey from his time at university to the present day.

'I wanted to create a tool to help people earn a living. There are so many people who do not have jobs and resources but are willing to work and have required skills to be a cleaner or a plumber but they cannot find jobs. I wanted to provide them work and create jobs.

Today we have a team of 50 cleaners and 15 painters who work for the company Local London Contractors. I have created 60-70 jobs with this company'.

Being enterprising by helping others - the SENSE charity art exhibition

In January we wrote a blog about the Touched exhibition for SENSE charity at TouchBase Pears (see the blog here). 

The project was part of the B-Enterprising Up Our Street social action project designed to give back, help others and tackle social issues around the Selly Oak community.


Touched ran throughout the whole of February and the purpose of the exhibition was to provide a sensory experience for people SENSE supports making art more accessible.

Chemical Engineering undergraduate Faith Husbands took part in the SENSE charity project and she has published a video which features the artwork created by her and the creative team.