ARE you a pupil with a passion to start your own business one day?
If you are, here is an opportunity to get organised and learn what you need to know about running a successful business.
Allan Gray and the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation are using games to make education more able to show high school pupils how to think like entrepreneurs.
Get involved by joining a six-week challenge. The challenge uses smartphone and web apps and ends on 12 September.
Anthony Selley, head of game play at the Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge, said nurturing a culture of entrepreneurship amid the grassroots of the country’s youth was necessary to reduce unemployment.
“Entrepreneurship has the potential to lift South Africa out of joblessness, but it has to start with the youth.”
He said the challenge seeks to broaden the understanding of entrepreneurship among the youth and highlights opportunities they can explore.
For 10 years the foundation dedicated much of its research to finding the qualities of a successful entrepreneur. These qualities include:
Creativity: Coming up with good ideas and implementing them.
Action orientation: Setting goals, pursuing goals and monitoring the execution.
Resilience: Bouncing back from adversity and conflict and increasing responsibility.
Reliable: Believing in your ability to successfully accomplish a specific task.
Need for achievement: Pursuing goals, taking on challenges, making risks and accepting responsibility which includes knowing when and when not to take control of situations, or letting go when they do not need to be or cannot be controlled.
“Nurturing these essential entrepreneurial characteristics will set our would-be entrepreneurs on the right path.
“But our overall approach needs to undergo a complete transformation first. We need to expose children to entrepreneurship from an early age to develop these mindsets.”
He said that each week during the duration of the challenge, Allan Grey will introduce new themes and ideas which will be driven by a set of challenges.
Each pupil’s performance is measured by a system of points.
This point-scoring process allows pupils to measure their own progress against their requirements by experience, problem- solving and learning.
More than 400 schools from around the country have already confirmed entry and more than 15 000 pupils are participating in the challenge.
Entry is free and open to all Mzansi pupils and schools. For more information, visit www. entrepreneurshipchallenge.co.za
