Our friends from the program for young entrepreneurs Teenovator shared the following:
Daniel Lorer, current Minister of innovations and development, will be opening the fourth edition of Teenovator “The Weekend of Ideas”, starting on Jan 22, Saturday at 9.30am. The two-day event is part of Teenovator’s program, which continues throughout the year, and is focused on enhancing entrepreneurship, business thinking and startup culture among the youth in Bulgaria. Almost 400 11th and 12th grade students, from 30 towns, will work in teams on over 70 startup ideas. The official opening and award ceremony will be broadcasted on Teenovator’s Facebook page, here.
Thrice as many students joined the program in the beginning of the school year 2021/22, compared to the previous year. A total of 60 mentors are working with the teams over weekly work sessions. In those sessions the participants develop skills for teamwork, presentation, design thinking, development of business model, marketing strategy, etc. They are learning how to build a company from A to Z, by the examples of successful international and Bulgarian companies.
During Teenovator’s “The Weekend of Ideas”, each team will be working for 1 ½ days on their first and very own project with the help of the mentors in the program – our mentors/partners represent a variety of sectors, including investors.
The aim of the event is to give the floor to students, to put to practice and upgrade their skills, which they started developing in the startup clubs since the beginning of the school year 2021/22.
The event will be held in hybrid form- separate clubs will be gathered with their mentors in person and joining via common Zoom event.
At the end of “The Weekend of Ideas” each team will present the project for 3 minutes in front of a selected jury .
The event will close with an award ceremony imcluding the following categories:
- Most sustainable business
- Green business
- Craziest idea
- Most innovative Idea
- Best social innovation
- Best project in the field of culture and arts
- Best pitch
- Best team
- Best IT project
“Teenovator gives a chance to young people to get a better picture for their future, to make an educated choice for their desired profession and to meet with some of the most successful people in Bulgaria. The fact that the program is ongoing through the whole school year is what distinguishes it and helps students to stack up on knowledge and skills”, said Veronika Racheva, head of the program.
“The Weekend of Ideas” is prelude to the final competition, which will take place in May, during which the students will present their developed companies in front of a jury, consisting only of investors”
About Teenovator
Teenovator’s pilot in Bulgaria was launched with the 2018/19 school year, when only 4 high schools from Sofia were participating in the program. Today over 1000 students have participated in the program, under the stewardship of around 100 mentors.
The project is focused on stimulating creative thinking of students and on developing entrepreneurship skills. Bulgarian mentors and entrepreneurs from startup companies, as well as from developed companies, with experience in different sectors, help students from 10th and 11th grade to find their passion and turn it into a successful project.
Teenovator is based on established practices from Stanford University.
Teenovator is realized with the financial support by America for Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Entrepreneurship center. Some of the sponsors of the program are UniCredit Bulbank and Kaufland Bulgaria. This year- Valya Nadova, representative of BEC and expert from LAUNCHub Ventures will be part of the jury.
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