Competition
The JA Company Program experience enhances students’ classroom curriculum and provides youth the opportunity to establish their own companies when the stakes are low. Students are encouraged to use innovative thinking to learn business skills that support positive attitudes as they explore and enhance their career aspirations.
The need for implementing the INJAZ Company Program with Egyptian students is critical. School and university curricula are severely limited in practicality and real-life knowledge. Recent studies of Arab education show that the majority of education and business observers feel that public school systems are failing to meet the needs of the job market. Student entrepreneurial skills remain untapped, overlooked, and overshadowed by traditional, non-interactive, theoretical learning methodologies based on memorization. The statistics highlighting the urgency of the situation of youth demonstrate the scale of the issue:
• Every year approximately 265,000 Egyptians graduate from universities and technical schools, many of whom join the growing ranks of the unemployed, which grows by up to 2 million people annually.
• In order to meet the huge intake of graduates entering the job market each year, over 700,000 jobs need to be created in Egypt.
• These staggering numbers are aggravated by the fact that 58% of the Egyptian population are below the age of 25, placing youth unemployment as one of Egypt's foremost and growing challenges.
INJAZ’s objective through this competition is to show case the incredible result and impact which comes about from turning our perception towards youth from a LIABILITY to an ASSET. Injaz’s purpose is to invest in Egypt’s greates asset....OUR YOUTH. It does so by linking business professionals to serve as role models and mentors to students at universities and schools where they trasfer their real life experience of the working world to students in classrooms across the country.
INJAZ initiatives like the Company Program directly address the deficiencies in the education of Egyptian youth. The inspiring experiences of youth overcoming obstacles and societal pressures to establish their own enterprises in the Company Program caught the attention of the PBS Network which filmed a documentary following the INJAZ Egypt Student Company Competition which was sponssored by Mobinil in 2009 (http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/egypt804/).
The program, which aired across the US showed the frustrations of youth who know they will have few job opportunities available upon graduation. In fact Egypt has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the region with only 32% of young adults fully employed. The long delay between an education which poorly prepares youth for the labor force and finding employment has led Egypt’s young people to be labeled the “Waiting Generation”. However, the documentary also demonstrated a resilience amongst young people willing to pursue alternatives to government employment and become the engines of job creation in Egypt as young entrepreneurs. The power of the Company Program is demonstrated by the fact that 30% of participating students are expected to become successful entrepreneurs after completing the Company Program according to a longitudinal study conducted by Junior Achievement Worldwide.
By launching and operating an actual business enterprise, students learn how to become entrepreneurs in the real world. The program is designed to help them understand the complex financial and managerial aspects of establishing a company, this exercise gives them valuable skills in cost benefit analysis, market research, business planning, HR development, production, pricing, marketing, sales and stock-based capitalization.
INJAZ EGYPT will be hosting its fourth annual Student Company Competition in this year under the title “Young Entrepreneurs of the Year“. Two main events will be taking place one for the students competing at the school level this will be taking place on June 23rd at the Fairmont Hotel 75 students representing 5 school teams will be competing for the top prize. A follow on event will be held for university students on Tuesday July 13th also at the Fairmont Hotel where an average of 400 students representing approximately 18 teams from different universities will present their entrepreneurial ventures to a panel of judges represented by leading members of the private sector. The judges will select the top teams appraising the business plan and manner in which operations were conducted. The peer selected student management team will have to justify the decisions made.
During the one day competition, student representatives of each company will:
• Set up a booth for their company in a trade fair
• Give a business presentation
• Be interviewed by a panel of judges
• Receive an assessment of the management report made by each company
The private sector judges on the jury panel will be involved in all of the above stages of the competition, giving students a thorough critique of their companies. Press coverage follows each stage of the competition, conducting interviews with the various teams.
The competition will culminate in a Gala Awards Ceremony. With competing student teams, dignitaries, and INJAZ stakeholders in attendance, the winners of the competition will be announced. Judges will select and award the top university teams and the top school teams. Each Award will include a tangible prize to be distributed to the winning teams.
The top teams from each of the competition events will be a candidate to represent Egypt at the INJAZ al-Arab Regional Company Competition tentatively scheduled to coincide with the World Economic Forum conference in Morocco in October 2010.
The need for implementing the INJAZ Company Program with Egyptian students is critical. School and university curricula are severely limited in practicality and real-life knowledge. Recent studies of Arab education show that the majority of education and business observers feel that public school systems are failing to meet the needs of the job market. Student entrepreneurial skills remain untapped, overlooked, and overshadowed by traditional, non-interactive, theoretical learning methodologies based on memorization. The statistics highlighting the urgency of the situation of youth demonstrate the scale of the issue:
• Every year approximately 265,000 Egyptians graduate from universities and technical schools, many of whom join the growing ranks of the unemployed, which grows by up to 2 million people annually.
• In order to meet the huge intake of graduates entering the job market each year, over 700,000 jobs need to be created in Egypt.
• These staggering numbers are aggravated by the fact that 58% of the Egyptian population are below the age of 25, placing youth unemployment as one of Egypt's foremost and growing challenges.
INJAZ’s objective through this competition is to show case the incredible result and impact which comes about from turning our perception towards youth from a LIABILITY to an ASSET. Injaz’s purpose is to invest in Egypt’s greates asset....OUR YOUTH. It does so by linking business professionals to serve as role models and mentors to students at universities and schools where they trasfer their real life experience of the working world to students in classrooms across the country.
INJAZ initiatives like the Company Program directly address the deficiencies in the education of Egyptian youth. The inspiring experiences of youth overcoming obstacles and societal pressures to establish their own enterprises in the Company Program caught the attention of the PBS Network which filmed a documentary following the INJAZ Egypt Student Company Competition which was sponssored by Mobinil in 2009 (http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/egypt804/).
The program, which aired across the US showed the frustrations of youth who know they will have few job opportunities available upon graduation. In fact Egypt has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the region with only 32% of young adults fully employed. The long delay between an education which poorly prepares youth for the labor force and finding employment has led Egypt’s young people to be labeled the “Waiting Generation”. However, the documentary also demonstrated a resilience amongst young people willing to pursue alternatives to government employment and become the engines of job creation in Egypt as young entrepreneurs. The power of the Company Program is demonstrated by the fact that 30% of participating students are expected to become successful entrepreneurs after completing the Company Program according to a longitudinal study conducted by Junior Achievement Worldwide.
By launching and operating an actual business enterprise, students learn how to become entrepreneurs in the real world. The program is designed to help them understand the complex financial and managerial aspects of establishing a company, this exercise gives them valuable skills in cost benefit analysis, market research, business planning, HR development, production, pricing, marketing, sales and stock-based capitalization.
INJAZ EGYPT will be hosting its fourth annual Student Company Competition in this year under the title “Young Entrepreneurs of the Year“. Two main events will be taking place one for the students competing at the school level this will be taking place on June 23rd at the Fairmont Hotel 75 students representing 5 school teams will be competing for the top prize. A follow on event will be held for university students on Tuesday July 13th also at the Fairmont Hotel where an average of 400 students representing approximately 18 teams from different universities will present their entrepreneurial ventures to a panel of judges represented by leading members of the private sector. The judges will select the top teams appraising the business plan and manner in which operations were conducted. The peer selected student management team will have to justify the decisions made.
During the one day competition, student representatives of each company will:
• Set up a booth for their company in a trade fair
• Give a business presentation
• Be interviewed by a panel of judges
• Receive an assessment of the management report made by each company
The private sector judges on the jury panel will be involved in all of the above stages of the competition, giving students a thorough critique of their companies. Press coverage follows each stage of the competition, conducting interviews with the various teams.
The competition will culminate in a Gala Awards Ceremony. With competing student teams, dignitaries, and INJAZ stakeholders in attendance, the winners of the competition will be announced. Judges will select and award the top university teams and the top school teams. Each Award will include a tangible prize to be distributed to the winning teams.
The top teams from each of the competition events will be a candidate to represent Egypt at the INJAZ al-Arab Regional Company Competition tentatively scheduled to coincide with the World Economic Forum conference in Morocco in October 2010.
