Who says entrepreneurship is just an adult game? Where does it say that young people cannot participate in the development of new business stories? The Slovenian education system has been investing in the development of entrepreneurial research programs, in which thousands of young people from primary and secondary school to university students have been trained, for more than a decade. The programs are designed to be very practical and young people gain experience with entrepreneurial activities that is quite like the real thing. Only that it’s not. Let’s say you could call it entrepreneurship in a safe sandbox. Entrepreneurship competitions are also a mandatory part of school entrepreneurship, which gets the adrenaline pumping.
We start the season with POPRI. POPRI is a school entrepreneurship competition for primary, secondary and higher education. In this competition, young teams compete against each other with business models and, if possible, with prototypes. The competition is two-stage. The teams first compete in the regional competitions, which will be held in the organization of the regional partners of the POPRI competition, namely here in the Podbreznik Business Incubator, in the Primorska Technological Park, in the SAŠA Incubator Velenje and in the Technological Park Ljubljana. Competitions will be held on March 6 and 7, and the deadline for submission of business models is February 14. The national competition is on April 4 in Nova Gorica. Proposals for the business model and for the presentation of the business model are published on the website of the POPRI competition.
The next competition on the calendar is the ScienceJam market-oriented science project competition. ScienceJam is a high school competition in which student teams compete with scientific projects with a business model. So, it is science entrepreneurship. The competition is two-stage. In the first round of ScienceJam, teams first compete in written research projects. Each project is reviewed and marked by a four-member committee. Two members evaluate the scientific part, and two the entrepreneurial part. According to the current regulations, up to 12 teams will qualify for the finals. In the finals, the teams compete with the presentation of their projects. Again, a four-member committee evaluates them and selects the top three best. The best two teams qualify for the International Science Olympiad in Vilnius, LT. The deadline for submitting research papers is March 8, and the final is April 16. Proposals for the presentation and research paper are published on the ScienceJam website.
The third competition is Junior Achievement. It is an entrepreneurial competition for high school students, which is run by the Institute for the Promotion of Youth Entrepreneurship. The program requires young people to ‘found’ a company and manage employees. It also expects them to raise seed capital and manage it. At the same time, of course, they must develop their product or service and, of course, their business model. They are also expected to start selling and issue an invoice with each sale. The biggest challenge for students is to get start-up capital. For this purpose, Junior Achievement promotes the sale of ‘shares’, for which students can get several 1,000 euros. Student teams will continue to compete with their business stories in regional competitions, which will take place from April 15 to 19, and the final selection will be held in Ljubljana on May 10. Every year, the program takes good care of the training of the teachers who participate in it. The best team goes to the Junior Achievement European Fair.
Another program that takes great care of the development of youth entrepreneurship is PoMP – Fostering Entrepreneurship Skills in Schools. Although PoMP does not have competitions, it has created a training program for teachers and a support network that will support teachers even when the project is no more.
The PoMP project is supported by the Norway Grants within the framework of the Education, Scholarships, Apprenticeship, and Youth Entrepreneurship program. The project partners, the Primorska Technology Park, Development Center of Novo mesto, Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU, SAŠA Incubator, Technology Park Ljubljana, and Scientific Research Center Bistra, Ptuj, are aware that the development of entrepreneurship competence is key for the future when the citizens of Europe will be faced with many serious challenges. With the project and pilot events, we are adding another pebble to the mosaic of efforts for a richer, greener, and more sustainable future.