Charlie Mullins OBE, CEO and founder of Pimlico Plumbers and self-made millionaire, has selected a Harrow College student as the winner of a UK wide competition he set to budding entrepreneurs.
Thushanthy Thilllainathan, studying BTEC Level 3 Diploma in IT at Harrow College, fought off competition from students across the country to win top prize in the challenge to design a new app for London's largest independent plumbing company.
Thushanthy, aged 18, designed the app drawing on knowledge acquired from her college course and support from college tutors. The app consisted of a home page designed with easy to navigate menus, clever use of colour and imagery and innovative features including a button which triggers a call back from the company when an enquiry has been submitted.
Charlie Mullins, himself an entrepreneur who left school aged of 15 to complete a plumbing apprenticeship before starting his business in 1979, invited Thushanthy to the Pimlico Plumbers head office to present her app. Following the presentation, Charlie Mullins surprised Thushanthy by informing her that she had been selected as the competition winner.
A delighted Thushanthy said "I really enjoyed this competition and feel very proud to have won. Support from Harrow College has been fantastic and the surprise of being told I had won by Charlie Mullins himself was amazing".
Charlie Mullins awarded Thushanthy with a winner's certificate as well as tickets to a West End Theatre show. Speaking about the competition, Charlie said "Our aim was to find some of the UK's finest young talent by setting a real life business challenge. We knew that choosing a winner would be tough but Thustanthy's application was of the highest standard. Thushanthy has a bright future ahead of her and we hope the competition has helped to find a star of the future".
Nisha Raithatha, Thushanthy's IT tutor said "our students at Harrow College have really raised the bar this year and Thushanty winning this prize is testament of this".
The competition was organised by The Entrepreneurial Education Group (TEEG) who invited Charlie Mullins to get involved. TEEG is driven by entrepreneurs and educators such as Harrow College working together to create a better prepared workforce and support the next generation of entrepreneurs who will become Britain's future leaders, captains of industry and employment creators.
Thrushanthy has lots of ambitions for the future. She has another year left at Harrow College after which she hopes to go onto university and then pursue a career in software engineering.