Young Entrepreneurship Project
Our Project
Business ideas
Within the Young Entrepreneurship Project, students from various parts of the world collaborate to help high school learners in developing areas to start up their own company.
The project connects the ‘Northern Hemisphere’ with the ‘Southern Hemisphere’ :
International teams of students first connect digitally and then come to Stellenbosch University in South Africa to help groups of high school learners to initiate and develop their sustainable business ideas, writing business plans and monitoring implementation.
Students from participating universities gain international experience, intercultural insights, and share their entrepreneurial skills with least-privileged youth in developing areas.
Project objectives:
- Inspiring high school learners in the field of entrepreneurship
- Creating a culture of business opportunities amongst the target group
- Promoting the initiation of small business start-ups in local communities
- Providing workable tools for this, suitable for the high school learners
- Facilitating the process of writing a business plan
- Providing start-up capital for the most promising business ideas
- Through the above, create a measurable, positive, long-term impact on local communities
Impact of YEP
By providing young learners with workable tools and skills for entrepreneurship, the long-term impact of YEP includes:
Inclusiveness, empowerment, awareness of capacity and talent, sense of purpose in life, and other beneficial aspects for the participants with diverse cultural backgrounds.
This again leads to increased local business activities, start-ups, less unemployment, and poverty reduction (SMEs are the ‘engine’ of economic growth) which is measured over time by researchers from the participating universities.
