Junior Achievement Romania awards schools, teachers, highschool and college students with entrepreneurial acumen

Junior Achievement (JA) Romania awarded in a virtual ceremony the pilot businesses and start-ups created and presented by young people in the national final of the European entrepreneurship competition JA Company of the Year 2022, the organization said in a release.

The event brought together over 280 participants, highschool and college students, teachers, professors and representatives of the companies that invest in the organization's educational programs.

Over 2.5 million RON are directed annually by JA partner companies to schools and student teams, in what represents - together with support for JA programs in schools and universities - the investment of the Romanian business community in the future, thus bringing the school closer to real life and the business milieu.

Along with the recognition of the companies that support JA programs, the most active educational institutions, teachers, professors, highschool and college students were awarded in the categories of entrepreneurial education, economic and financial education, vocational education and STEM (science, technology, engineering, math).

The 'learning by doing' entrepreneurship program closes annually with the national final of the European competition JA Company of the Year which this year brought together 28 teams of young entrepreneurs (highschool and college students) who pitched their pilot and start-up businesses to the jury made up of professionals from the competition partners; their products featured innovative ideas in various fields, such as: technology, e-commerce, social business, creative industries, education or agriculture.

The finalist teams were selected from over 250 mini-companies enrolled in the JA BizzFactory Educational Incubator, where they piloted their business ideas for 3 months, received mentoring and advice from volunteer business consultants and participated in over 50 live webinars on various topics related to entrepreneurship. The winners of the national stage will represent Romania at the European Gen-E events (Highschool and College student sections) and SIR 2022 (social entrepreneurship, Highschool student section).

The Grand Prize (JA Company of the Year) - Highschool student section was awarded to the EcoNavis team from the 'Alexandru Ioan Cuza' Theoretical Highschool in Bucharest, coordinated by teacher Gratiela Goruneanu.

The recipient of the Grand Prize (JA Company of the Year) - College student section - was the SignText team of the Bucharest Polytechnic University, coordinated by Professor Ciprian Ion Rizescu.

Educational institutions participating in national and European Junior Achievement projects and competitions, as well as teachers and student teams were also offered prizes.

The non-profit organization Junior Achievement (JA) Romania was founded in 1993 and is part of JA Worldwide USA and JA Europe. Junior Achievement is the largest international organization for entrepreneurship, economics and finance, with programs in 40 countries in Europe and over 100 countries worldwide. In Romania, JA's "learning by doing" and "project based" programs are attended annually by over 240,000 highschool and college students from over 1,700 educational institutions and are conducted locally in partnership with the Ministry of Education, educational institutions and the business community. AGERPRES