ENTREPRENEUR Mike Philips survived on baked beans to launch his business idea.

Now thanks to his website, parents can let their children use the internet for advanced education research without worrying what they will stumble across.

Mr Philips, of Eanam Wharf, Blackburn, has entered the Broadband Britain Challenge to gain acknowledgement of his success. In his application he said it took three years of scrimping and saving to survive while the idea was still on the drawing board.

His website, www.bigtourch.com, gives students from all levels of education, from primary school through to university, access to research tools that children of younger ages are usually denied access to.

An 11-year-old doing a school project on breast cancer is usually not able to search websites for the term 'breast' for example.

However, because bigtourch.com is a guaranteed pornography-and-junk-free internet management system, parents know that schoolchildren and students can get access to all these sites safely.

The Broadband Britain Challenge has been created to recognise and celebrate the pioneers of broadband.

Philippa Winterburn of BT said: "Our aim is to gather broadband success stories from ordinary British people who are doing extraordinary things with broadband.

"We then wish to use these stories to inspire the UK and show them what broadband can do for them."

The challenge website is www.broadbandbritainchallenge.co.uk