School entrepreneurs swap classroom for business bootcamp
THE school year may have ended but students from St. Mary's Secondary School in Ballina are still busy with lessons - only this time it's not in the classroom.
Three students from the school - Ciara Bourke, Lauren Cawley and Rachael Barrett - are on a week-long business bootcamp as part of the annual Student Enterprise Awards programme through the Local Enterprise Offices. Their product ‘Babe Magnets’, a magnetic boards for make-up, was a winner at this year's Student Enterprise Awards national final, which took place in Croke Park in April.
In all, 17 teenage entrepreneurs across eight different student enterprises from Offaly, Louth, Dublin, Mayo, Westmeath, Wexford, Limerick and Kildare have won a place at this year’s Winners’ Bootcamp, which will help them expand and grow their entrepreneurship skills.
Organised by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices, the third annual bootcamp is hosted by the College of Business and Law at University College Cork in association with the IGNITE Graduate Business Innovation Programme for the first time, and is taking place all this week. Students were selected from the senior category award winners at the Student Enterprise Awards national final.
Throughout the programme, students will expand their business knowledge and develop their enterprise ideas through challenges, team building sessions and project workshops. Gaining new perspectives and accessing expertise may help the students become the business owners and leaders of the future, according to organisers.
The annual Student Enterprise Awards programme began in classrooms last September, where 17,000 students from 370 schools researched, set-up and managed real-life businesses as part of the biggest student enterprise programme in the country.
John Magee, senior enterprise development officer from the Local Enterprise Office Mayo, said that the focus of the bootcamp was on entrepreneurial skill development.
He added: “The aim of the Student Enterprise Awards is to foster a more enterprising culture in our schools and classrooms and to encourage more of our young people to consider entrepreneurship as a career choice.
“After setting up real-world businesses through the Student Enterprise Awards, the Winners' Bootcamp is the next natural step to support and encourage our upcoming generation of entrepreneurs.”
The next Student Enterprise Awards programme for 2015/16 gets underway in September, with video resources and school materials available through www.studententerprise.ie. Teachers are being encouraged to contact the Local Enterprise Office to register for the 2015/16 programme.