JAS ‘Youth in Business’ Conference and JA Student Company Fair: Business of Love Takes Top Prize at Junior Achievement Serbia Finals

Wednesday, 27 May 2009 15:30

Twenty student company finalists competed for top honors on Wednesday, May 27 at a ‘Youth in Business’ conference sponsored by Junior Achievement in Serbia and supported by USAID's Preparedness, Planning and Economic Security (PPES) Program. The finalists were selected from over 100 student companies in 93 schools from throughout Serbia that participated in JA activities during the 2008/2009 school year.

Students presented their student companies’ products and services to a panel of judges that evaluated these businesses based on the completeness of the company report, quality of the business presentation, visual appeal of the fair stand and overall business concept. This year's top prize (a trip to Rotterdam to participate in JA-Europe's annual competition for the best student companies in Europe) went to students from Vlasotince’s Technical School.  The student company, "Cupid," exhibited a range of hand-knitted cellular phone and mp3 player case-holders tied together by a compelling branding scheme.  Second place went to the student company from Rakovica (Belgrade) "15th Corp.", while third place was split between Presevo's "Junior Skills" company (which won an award at last year's JA end-of-the-year event) and Medvedja's "Colosseum" company.

The conference sought to raise Junior Achievement’s visibility among business leaders and promote JA as a valuable avenue for exercising their own corporate social responsibility (CSR) objectives. The keynote speaker for the pre-award lunch was Branka Minic, Director of Global Corporate Affairs for Manpower, who discussed the importance of mobilizing public-private partnerships to address youth unemployment. The assembled audience of 80 business and international organization representatives, 16 media outlets and more than 100 students and teachers were also addressed by USAID's Deputy Mission Director, Marilynn Schmidt, JA-Europe's CEO, Caroline Jenner, JA-Serbia's Board Chairman, Zeljko Ozegovic, the City of Belgrade's Secretary of Education, Vladimir Todic and the Ministry of Education's Assistant Minister, Bogoljub Lazarevic. The speakers discussed the various challenges and opportunities facing European Youth in today’s economy. As a result of the event, Junior Achievement Serbia made significant strides towards building in-roads into the local business community needed to secure the long-term sustainability of the program.  JA-Serbia has already had follow-up meetings with the Minister of Education and Erste Bank, which approached JAS immediately after the event, to discuss support for JAS programs during the next school year.