{"id":1202,"date":"2021-01-21T21:01:48","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T21:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/?p=1202"},"modified":"2021-01-22T20:16:54","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T20:16:54","slug":"kent-young-entrepreneur-wins-innovation-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/2021\/01\/21\/kent-young-entrepreneur-wins-innovation-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent Young Entrepreneur wins innovation award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A young entrepreneur from Kent has won the prestigious Young Innovators award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;Young Innovators programme was created in 2018 by Innovate UK in partnership with The Prince\u2019s Trust to find young people from across the UK with great business ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each year they select young people from diverse backgrounds to win the award, giving them a grant of \u00a35000, one-on-one business coaching and an allowance to cover living costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year, the programme had an unprecedented level of entries with an 87% increase in applications from the previous year This meant that the number of winners also doubled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly a third of this year\u2019s winners are from a BAME background. Whereas 49% of the winners are female and 17% have a disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2557\" height=\"2560\" src=\"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1213\" srcset=\"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-scaled.jpg 2557w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-768x769.jpg 768w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-500x500.jpg 500w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-800x801.jpg 800w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-1280x1281.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-1920x1922.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-1534x1536.jpg 1534w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-2046x2048.jpg 2046w, https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-Dipietro-3-edited-70x70.jpg 70w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2557px) 100vw, 2557px\" \/><figcaption>Valentine Dipietro &#8211; Winner of Young Innovators Award from Rainham, Kent<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Valentina Dipietro, 26, is one of 64 young people from across Britain to receive the award this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She is the founder of her own company, Mykor, which specialises in a sustainable material made from wood waste, natural dyes and the root of mushrooms. Valentina herself came up with this innovative material which is fire retardant, insulating and sound-absorbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Invicta News caught up with the young entrepreneur to catch her reaction to winning the award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Take us back to how you felt when you first found out that you won the award. How did you feel?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video controls src=\"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-2-Made-by-Headliner.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How did you come up with your innovative idea, the sustainable material which Mykor specialises in?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video src=\"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-3-Made-by-Headliner.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You decided to start up your business right in the middle of a global pandemic.&nbsp; Do you have to be a certain type of person to face such a challenge?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video controls src=\"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Valentina-1-Made-by-Headliner.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To hear more on this story please tune into our radio programme, the link will be provided soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A young entrepreneur from Kent has won the prestigious Young Innovators award. The&nbsp;Young Innovators programme was created in 2018 by Innovate UK in partnership with The Prince\u2019s Trust to find young people from across the UK with great business ideas&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":{"x":"0.56","y":"0.47"}},"categories":[39,13,7,8],"tags":[190,20,191,188],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/InvictaNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}