BUSINESS is on the up for a South Lakeland training company that has been in the doldrums since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Corporate Adrenalin saw its mainstay - the corporate conference market - dry up overnight as fear of travelling kept potential clients at home.

The Windermere business has since seen its workforce shrink from 20 to just four as the after effects of 9/11 took its toll.

But Corporate Adrenalin is now fighting back, with a number of exciting new projects on the stocks, and managing director Chris Hillman has high hopes for the future.

The first initiative off the starting blocks is a joint venture with former Olympic hurdler and sprinter Kriss Akabusi.

Called the Athenian Challenge, it involves teams of people competing against each other in a series of simple and fun games. With next year’s Olympics in Athens now on the horizon, Mr Hillman is convinced the topical venture will prove a hit.

Next week, South Lakeland businesses will be able to judge for themselves when the challenge – along with an appearance by Kriss Akabusi, now a motivational speaker much in demand on the corporate circuit – comes to Kendal Leisure Centre.

The event, which is being held on Wednesday, November 19, is being run by Business Link for Cumbria and is being sponsored by the government-backed UK Trade and Investment, formerly known as Trade Partners UK.

Mr Hillman hopes the 40 or so other Business Link organisations across the country will also pick up on the challenge.

Next week, he is also due to meet officials hoping to bring the 2008 Olympic Games to London to discuss staging an Athenian Challenge for teams across the country to drum up nationwide support for the London bid.

Meanwhile, Corporate Adrenalin is aiming to join an American drive to achieve more thriving schools.

Mr Hillman flew to the USA last week to hold talks with Dan Burrus, a world-renowned expert on future technology who is an adviser to the Pentagon as well as many top companies.

He wants the Windermere business to develop computer-based games as part of a multi-million dollar initiative to raise education standards in schools, backed by top US telecom company Sprint.

“We hope to be part of that overall strategy. It’s a fantastic long-term opportunity for us,” Mr Hillman told Business Gazette.

“Dan Burrus is committed to us and we have to develop a number of web-based solutions in the next two to three months.” Closer to home, Corporate Adrenalin has been working with Warwickshire County Council on a novel public consultation exercise about future council tax levels.

Rather than being asked to carry out a traditional paper exercise, consultees from the Midlands authority will take part in a computer-based virtual journey, ‘driving’ a car around a town and visiting locations such as a school and fire station.

The computer program will ask them to make decisions about service levels for education and the fire service, and the knock-on effect on council tax bills.

“From that point of view, it takes gaming to the next level – you are into artificial intelligence,” said Mr Hillman.

Corporate Adrenalin has worked on the project as a joint venture, and hopes it will prove popular with many of the other 400 local authorities up and down the country.