OKEHAMPTON College is to take part in a pilot scheme supporting budding entrepeneurs in Devon's rural schools and communities.

The Rural Growth Network (RGN) launched its latest initiative, the RGN Community and Schools Entrepreneurship Pilot scheme, last week.

The project aims to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the wider rural community, establish a programme that promotes entrepreneurship within the schools, linking primary, secondary and tertiary phases and encourage a whole community approach to the development of innovative and sustainable businesses.

Taking place at Okehampton College and four other community colleges in the county, the pilot will include a series of workshops, mentoring sessions, information events, and enterprise challenges, focusing separately on local schools as well as members of the local community.

Andrew Leadbetter, cabinet member for economy and growth at Devon County Council said: 'This is really good news for Devon and I am sure it will make a real difference in these rural communities.

'Anything that can be done to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship has to be an excellent use of resources and will stimulate growth and allow people to remain where they were brought up.

'They can develop their own income streams thus putting money back into the local economy and ultimately providing further jobs. I look forward to seeing the results.'

Chris Garcia, chief executive of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership said: 'We are really pleased that this latest initiative under RGN, the 'Community & Schools Entrepreneurship Pilot' is launching.

'It is set to make a real difference to rural communities. The Rural Growth Network is designed to realise the potential of enterprises and encourage the growth of new rural businesses.'

The pilot, initiated by the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership, and funded through the Rural Growth Network (RGN) and Devon County Council, is being delivered by Devon and Cornwall Business Council, in association with a number of partner organisations: Education Business Partnership SW, Careers SW, Optimise 4 and The Fruit Tree for Business.

The overall vision for the Heart of the South West (HOTSW) Rural Growth Network (RGN) is to create a sustainable rural economy through developing a network of rural enterprise hubs which act as a focal point for support to the micro and small business sector.

The purpose of this pilot scheme is to develop a mechanism to raise awareness of entre-preneurialism amongst Devon's young people and communities, thereby creating a potential pipeline of future users for the RGN hubs.

The Okehampton College scheme launches on February 13, with launch events at the Simmons Park sports pavilion from 4pm to 5.30pm, and 5.30pm to 7pm.

Members of the community interested in taking part in the community entrepre-neurship workshops can attend a launch event at the park pavilion on March 20 at 8pm.

The pilot will run until October 2014 and enquiries about this scheme should be made to Karen Woodward (DCBC project manager) on [email protected]">[email protected] or 07583 739815.