I never thought I would run my own business. Being able to think imaginatively, in other words, entrepreneurially is important for all students.

UoB Elevate is a programme of support helping our students and graduates right through from the start to growing their business and then working on it to accelerate it even further. The University of Birmingham is investing in student entrepreneurship in every sense of the words. Right in this lovely city centre building with the start of a student and graduate incubator. With the help of you we can help we can help our students realise their ambitions. So there's so many ways our students and our graduates benefit from involvement with regional businesses through the entrepreneurship work that they're doing.

For example, businesses both locally here within the midlands, or more generally nationally, can have a huge potential resource of brilliant people, who with the right entrepreneurial mindset that will be able to slot in to a broad range of business settings.

We chose to locate our new head office in Birmingham because it is a dynamic and entrepreneurial city, but businesses need support to grow. By opening an incubator the university is committing to help young entrepreneurs realise their entrepreneurial ambitions here in the city. It's important though for us all to think how we can support those entrepreneurs. It's exciting to see the genuine investment opportunities these businesses present but we should all be thinking how we can connect these young entrepreneurs to expertise and resources that exist.

So why did I get involved in entrepreneurial activity here in Birmingham. Put simply, the University of Birmingham changed my life. I've seen just how important the environment in which a young person operates has so much impact on whether or not they can make a success in a more innovative, entrepreneurial activity. You're really helping to support young individuals get to where they need to be to help stimulate the economy, opening up the opportunities every step of that way. People giving us their time and their expertise, we've had access to so many people, that you would never have access to if it wasn't in a university setting. It's just making sure that young people have every opportunity to get the very best out of life and this is just a further extension of that.

At HSBC UK, we are pleased to work with the incubator to help students start on the right track and understand what they need to set up a business. That's often just informal chats at the incubator, speaking to students about setting up business accounts and introducing them to resources on our website such as the Cash Flow forecasting tool. We're proud to play our part in helping these young entrepreneurs; innovate, evolve and grow. We're excited about the future. Come and work with us. Let us all help these young entrepreneurs realise their ambitions.