Enabling focus on innovation and technology

The Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation (BEF) $20 Challenge, has announced that it will be launching a new pilot series in collaboration with the Optimist Clubs of Barbados under the theme Igniting the Entrepreneurial Mindset which will focus on enabling innovation and embracing more technology.

Chairperson of the BEF, Celeste Foster said: “Having recognise the need to grow the program beyond direct school recruitment and move into community engagement, the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation has this year refashioned and re-imagined the $20 challenge.

This partnership with the Optimist Clubs has presented an opportunity to explore this new direction, with a view to utilising what we have learnt in our 10th Anniversary Edition of the $20 Challenge.”

She added that the $20 Challenge this season has also brought on new partners in Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business (SCHSB) and the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES). The $20 Challenge would have already held its first event at the SCHSB as it returns to its beginnings and will also sponsor the location for the launch and the graduating events. YES is sponsoring the training as well as providing the facilitators for said training.

“We are extremely grateful for the returning sponsors who have stayed by our side over the years – including title sponsor Scotiabank, who without them we could not have advanced as far as we have to date; and NSR Ltd – management of Sky Mall – who hosts the pop-up Market Places. Both entities along with the two new sponsors – SCHSB and YES – recognise the void in experiential entrepreneurship training for tertiary students. This pilot will allow us to explore a framework for making this an annual initiative,” she said.

This pilot will feature only one face-to-face Marketplace, which will take place on August 14, 2021 at Sky Mall from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. All other trading will be done virtually, similar to the last cycle’s new Pivot Edition which essentially sought to foster business innovation and helped the students explore non-traditional pathways in business.

Foster added: “Despite the pandemic and all the curve balls it has thrown at all of us, these students who participate in the $20 Challenge continue to be resilient and empowered and so it encourages us to continue setting this important agenda to teach the students who participate the essential life skills which are even more imperative as we see what the world of business is going through during the COVID pandemic.

The earlier they are introduced, the bigger the impact on their lives. And with these new and important partnerships with the Optimist Clubs of Barbados, Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme, the skills that the students develop from their collaboration can set the stage for them to thrive despite anything that comes their way, including a global pandemic.”

The $20 Challenge is a part of the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation’s (BEF) national initiative that aims to promote and support entrepreneurship in Barbados. The competition is targeted at thousands of young Barbadians, drawn from secondary and tertiary educational institutions across the country.

The challenge’s main purpose is to give young people the opportunity to be enterprising. It aims to increase their ability to respond positively to change, take reasonable risks, create and execute new ideas and new ways of doing things, and to act on their plans confidently.

For more information about the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation $20 Challenge, visit www.barbadosentrepreneurshipfoundation.org, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube. (PR)