High school students to compete for chance to develop business idea 

High school students are encouraged to submit applications to take part in the country’s very first Youth Innovation Camp for a chance to develop their ideas and launch their very own business.

The Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Guyanese Alumni in collaboration with the US Embassy in Georgetown are giving an opportunity to about 30 high school students to compete for a chance to win funding and training to start their own business.

Dason Anthony, one of the organizers of the initiative, told News Room on Monday that applicants must be between the ages 15 and 17 and must submit proposals in groups of three.

“We’re going to look at groups, and the best group will win. It doesn’t matter which plan you have, if you want to open a plantain chip factory, it’s just an idea and we want to see how best we can fund that idea,” he explained.

Application forms are available on the group’s Facebook page – YLAI Guyana – and the deadline for submission is November 15.

Anthony said the applicants will then be shortlisted to about 30 and then they will take part in the Youth Innovation Camp which is billed for December 18-20.

“We’re going to take them through workshops, life coaching and business coaching for them to see if this is something they would want to do after their school life … we will ensure there is a lot of coaching and a lot of mentoring for them to create a business plan,” Anthony explained.

The winning group will gain access to about US$2000 as well as one year of support.  Anthony said the organisers hope to award prizes to the second and third best groups.

He explained that the aim of the initiative is to help uncertain high school students get an idea of what it means to be an entrepreneur.

“We’re trying to give them that imagery of entrepreneurship and see if that might be best for them … we’re basically just looking at how the economy is going and you know, there are not a lot of jobs available for young people and so we’re trying to foster entrepreneurship at a young age,” Anthony stated.

The Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative all started when a group of Guyanese was chosen to participate in the project. When they returned, there was an alumni fund available for them to use to develop a local project.