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The students won the The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme Southland Company of the Year award on Tuesday for their creation MakerBox.

MakerBox encourages children to be creative, to help them engage with something different and create different six projects - all from inside the box.

The initiative is particularly targeted at children of primary school age and will be sold on a monthly subscription basis.

Simon Gray, Stuart Dean, Benjamin McIntyre, Logan Hunter and Au Soonkijkan, all aged 17, will now represent the Southland-Lakes District region at the national competition in Wellington on December 6.

McIntyre said they wanted to create a project that used technology to create something, rather than children always looking at a screen.

McIntyre also won the Southland Young Enterpriser of the Year award.

The group said they had learnt a lot about the importance of team work and being able to work together.

The competition, between four teams, came down to the decision of the judges, who were given $50,000 of virtual money and had to choose which team they would invest in based off their pitches.

Southland co-ordinator Joanne O'Connor said that all the teams were "very deserving".

"It was a surprise, even to me who was going to win, but MakerBox was the chosen team by the judges, taking over the other teams by 10 points."

MakerBox took out four excellence awards including Innovation, Solving a Development Problem, Enterprising Technology and the supreme award - The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme Southland Company of the Year.

Impossumbles Products, from Aparima College, won the excellence award for Environmental Sustainability.

My Mental Tone, also from Aparima College, won the excellence award for Social Enterprise.