The Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development (DOIED) successfully completed its Second Edition of the Schools Entrepreneurship Competition (SEC), which was launched on the 1st of June 2020.
This year’s theme was related to the novel Coronavirus hence, the competition was designated “Living with COVID-19 – A Student’s Perspective” as opposed to last year “Future Businesses”. This is because COVID-19 has brought about a ‘new normal’ and has recalibrated the entirety for students schooling, socializing and playing in schools. It is believed that such interruptions to young people’s lives and routines may lead to fear and anxiety, which later transforms into attitude issues. Therefore, what better way to change the mindsets of youths by having them face their concerns through a competition that by encouraging them to solve their challenges with an innovative business solution.
The competition was divided into 3 categories and DOIED received a total of 96 submissions from 91 participants. Students had one month to submit their projects (i.e. Business solution) from the closing date of registration (i.e. 15th June 2020) in any of the six different formats namely; A3-sized drawings; Essay (between 1000-2000 words); Video (up to 3 minutes); a Business Plan; PowerPoint Presentation; or a Prototype.
Student’s submissions, regardless of their format, were equally judged using the following criteria:
- Is the format used understandable?
- Relevance to the COVID-19 related issues within school life?
- What is the potential impact of the submitted business idea?
- Does the business idea have ‘originality’ and ‘innovative’ aspects to it?
- Is the business idea feasible and can it be commercialized?
The judging panel was made up of representatives from both the public and private sector ensuring transparency and impartiality in assessments:
- Audrey Chetty - Senior Financial Inclusion Analyst at the Central Bank of Seychelles;
- Peter Rosalie - Business Consultant;
- Dolly Tirant - Head of Corporate and Small Medium Enterprises at the Mauritius Commercial Bank;
- Christopher Lespoir - Country Manager for Vimentis Seychelles; and
- Stephanie Larue - Principal Policy Analyst for Entrepreneurship Development at the Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development.
For the first time, the Department opted to use Judgify, a simple-to-use online award management system for automating contests of any size and type. This free software allows the users to set their own rules and criteria for judging.
Judges were able to sign in the system and provide their scoring on each project based on the above-mentioned criteria. The final scoring was based on the average score of all judges in each project.
Following the judging cycle which was completed within the given timeline, the scores were tallied by the “Judgify” system and the winners were identified as follows:
For Primary Level (6-11 years old) - Mitch Loze;
For Secondary Level (12-16 years old) - Lylie Mason; and
For Post-Secondary Level (17-21 years old) - Isa Gamatis –Henriette.
The prize giving ceremony took place shortly after the results were published, on Friday 11th September in a small ceremony at CEPS Conference Room where winners, parents of winners, judges and sponsors were able to attend with a special guest appearance, the Vice President, Mr. Vincent Meriton.
At the event, winners, judges and sponsors were congratulated for the dedication towards entrepreneurship development and they all received a token of appreciation.
The winners received Prizes sponsored by 4 main stakeholders. The Mauritius Commercial Bank sponsored the Primary, Secondary and Post-secondary level with SCR1,500, SCR2,500 and SCR3,500 in a Savings Account, respectively. Moreover, each winner was also awarded with 1 Maz Million Raffle Ticket (sponsored by Maz Millions); STC Voucher worth SCR 1000 (sponsored by Seychelles Trading Company Ltd.); and finally an insulated water bottle and “Giraffe Book store voucher worth SCR 500 (both sponsored by Central Bank of Seychelles).
It is worth mentioning that the Department has sought the assistance of a consultant through funding made available by the National Financial Education Steering Committee to formulate a School Entrepreneurship Competition Framework based on the youth’s view of what they would like to see implemented in the annual competition and what they will gain out of it. This will take entrepreneurship one-step further in Seychelles.
Images from the competition can be found here.
