Young entrepreneur takes top AIMES award

Young entrepreneur takes top AIMES award

2018 AIMES Award winners announced


TAKAPUNA, 29 October 2018: A bright young entrepreneur with a passion for helping others has taken top honours and the AIMES Supreme Award.

Sharndre Kushor (24), who attended Albany Primary School, Albany Junior High and Albany Senior High School, also won the AIMES Innovation Award.

The annual AIMES (Arts, IT, Innovation & Science, Music, Education, Sport and Service to the Community) awards are the innovation of the North Harbour Club, a group of local business and community leaders aspiring to help talented North Shore youth achieve even higher. The awards dinner was held at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna on Saturday night.

Supreme Award winner Sharndre says, "It’s a real honour to receive an AIMES Award. I am always inspired by young people achieving greatness and I feel very fortunate to be recognised alongside other young people from the North Shore who are role models to others.

"Through the AIMES Award and the North Harbour Club, I hope to continue to share my story of entrepreneurship in education to inspire other youth to make a positive impact on the world around us and to build a stronger North Shore community that can create and nurture broader impact on New Zealand."

At the age of 18, after graduating as Head Student at Albany Senior High, Sharndre co-founded Crimson Education from her family living room in Albany, an entity that has evolved from a start-up into a NZ$220 million global education company, encompassing 20,000 students and 2,000 tutors and mentors. As Chief Operating Officer, Sharndre has overseen expansion to 24 cities around the world. Just last year Crimson was recognised as Deloitte Fast 50's top three fastest growing companies with 1005% growth.

Sharndre received $15,000 as the AIMES Supreme Winner and a further $15,000 for the AIMES Innovation Award – sponsored by Massey University.

She will use the funds to contribute towards attending an Interpersonal Dynamics for High Performance Executives course at Stanford University and too help with a charitable initiative to spread the Christmas joy to underprivileged children on the North Shore.

A cellist, opera singer, cyclist and doctor complete the AIMES award winners (see full list below).

The Junior Excellence Awards are the first stepping-stone on the AIMES journey with all the applicants being encouraged to reapply in the future to have the opportunity of being recipients of an Emerging Talent or an AIMES Award.

This year the Bellingham Wallace Accountancy sponsored AIMES Emerging Talent Awards and the Library Lane/NZ Force Construction sponsored Junior Excellence Awards were presented at a cocktail function held at the B:Hive at Smales Farm on Wednesday October 24th. Eight AIMES Emerging Talent Awards were presented and nine Junior Excellence Awards (see full list of award winners below).

To be nominated for an AIMES Award, recipients (aged between 10 & 13 for a Junior AIMES Award and 14 & 25 for an Emerging Talent or AIMES Award) must display excellence in the areas of the Arts, IT, Innovation & Science, Music, Education, Sport and Service to the Community.

Since its inception the North Harbour Club has made awards and grants of more than $2.2 million to talented youth, and this year's winners collectively receive close to $200,000 in support to attain even higher excellence in their fields thanks to the Club's 190 plus members.

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