STUDENTS from York have a chance to create an entirely new product for one of the biggest private firms in the city.

CPP Group plc, which employs 1,100 people at Holgate Park, tomorrow launches Ideas In Action, an innovation challenge to every secondary school and college in York.

The firm, which earlier this month scooped the Evening Press Large Business of the Year Award, already has products which have taken it beyond just its Card Protection Plan service, from which it takes its initials.

It also has products protecting against loss of keys or mobile phone at home and abroad, as well as new services which include identity theft protection and a host of others coming on stream.

But now, with the help of the youth of York, it is seeking other interesting ways of addressing problems and barriers that people face in their everyday lives. Or ways in which CPP can help when life does go wrong.

Chris Denison, head of global innovation at CPP, will launch the competition at Burnholme Community College in Bad Bargain Lane, York, tomorrow when between 3.30pm and 5.30pm he will meet representatives of all 11 of the city's secondary schools and its three further education institutions and colleges.

To help with the challenge, CPP has selected four important "areas of need" - dangers in society; health and fitness; environment; and mobile phone culture.

Students will be asked to form a team and choose one of them, then with the help of a CPP "innovation toolkit" as well as specialist workshops and monitoring sessions run by CPP's innovation team, be steered towards exciting new ideas.

They will then present them to innovation judges.

Finalists will be announced on May 5 next year and there will be a special awards ceremony on June 16.

Apart from trophies and certificates, prizes will include audio-visual equipment worth £2,000 for the school group with the best idea plus hundreds of pounds worth of book and music tokens to share

Mr Denison said: "For our part it is a way of understanding what interests youth, what turns them on, what they would buy and out of that we might potentially see real products that address genuine family needs. Meanwhile, they are learning the importance of being creative and innovative with the help of a toolkit which gives them a commonsense approach to looking ast the world, understanding the needs of the environment, its dangers, the need for health and fitness and the mobile phone culture.

"We want to see their ideas on all these themes."

Updated: 10:23 Monday, November 28, 2005