Student draws link between IP and Young Enterprise to win the 2022 CLA IP Award

Shashwat Tiwari, a Year 12 student from Colchester Royal Grammar School, has become the third recipient of the CLA IP award, which invites learners to consider questions behind copyright, IP, and how these areas affect their world.

Tasked with telling the judges what intellectual property (IP) means to them, entrants impressed the judges with accounts of electronics and patents, art and design, social media and family links with the creative industries. But it was Shashwat’s reflection on the impact of IP as managing director of a Young Enterprise Company that topped the podium places.

From Shashwat’s essay submission for the CLA IP Award:

As an aspiring lawyer, the intricacy of intellectual property has always fascinated me and is a field I have considered working within as I firmly believe that individuals and corporations should hold the right to defend and protect their ideas, logos and designs. Furthermore, as the managing director of a Young Enterprise Company, my current issue is trying to find a corporate and brand name that does not infringe on another entity’s copyright, which shows that IP can affect anyone, even just a student.… The process as a whole has been difficult but necessary to ensure that people’s unique brands can’t be used by someone else for their separate product. The trademark, patent and copyright laws and regulations both protect us and those companies with unique brands that have taken lots of time and resources to build.

It’s clear from the entries that IP is a living breathing concern for students studying a range of disciplines, and a vital strand not only to their studies but also to wider creative life.

On hearing of the win, and that the prize of £300 would be his, Shashwat shared his thoughts:

I am very grateful for winning this IP Award as I put a lot of time and effort into writing this essay and am overjoyed at the result. I decided to enter after my school sent us an email regarding the competition and I had recently become very interested in the world of intellectual property especially after I started my Young Enterprise business and began to discover how IP actually worked…I fundamentally believe that everyone should have some basic understanding of IP as it is crucial to how our world works. 

Second place was awarded to Jacob Custard of The Cotswold School, while Alex Berrall from St Martin’s Caerphilly Sixth Form and Rufus Strange from Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School shared third place. Our warm congratulations to all prize winners.