Europe
July 20, 2015
Source: Monsanto Europe-Afrique
The Junior Achievement Young Enterprise (JA-YE) recently received a USD 96,000 grant from the Monsanto Fund for their European programme “Fostering Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship.”
JA-YE is an organisation that provides young people with the necessary experiences, skills, understanding and perspective to succeed in a global economy. The grant will help fund an already-established project that has been running for 10 years.
The START UP Programme is the main project of JA-YE, and “uses hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. In partnership with business and educators, JA-YE brings the real world to students and opens their minds to their potential.”
According to their website, the goal of this project is “to promote long-term growth and job creation by significantly improving the conditions for innovation-driven entrepreneurship, creating an immediate and sustainable impact.”
JA-YE does this by connecting program participants with key entrepreneurial leaders in the community, which creates a network of mentors and mentees who are unified in European entrepreneurship.
Every year, JA-YE work with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to sponsor the European Enterprise Challenge, a competition where students present the projects they have been working on at their partnered start-up comapnies.
A panel of judges acts as “potential investors” and decides how much they would be willing to invest in each start-up company. The team with the highest amount of investment wins the Challenge.
The 2014 Challenge’s press release and complete list of winners can be seen here.
For more information about Monsanto Fund’s international programmes and how to apply, visit http://www.monsantofund.org/grants/international/.