Entrepreneurship Management 214 & 244

What are we currently doing?

Young Entrepreneurship Project: The Young Entrepreneurship Project is a joint initiative between Stellenbosch University and Hocheschool Utrecht (Netherlands) where university students teach basic entrepreneurial skills to high school learners. In the past, this has been done in a week-long intensive course. Since its start in 2018, YEP has been conducted in-person and with the onset of COVID-19, a new online leg (YEP: BOOST) has been created to expand the program’s reach to more schools across South Africa.

Young Entrepreneurship Project BOOST: YEP: BOOST will be presented as an online, extra-curricular activity for grade 10 high school students, where they will have access to online learning content to work through under the supervision of their business studies teacher. This content will teach learners about the basics of developing a business plan and creating their own start-up venture. YEP: BOOST is presented in two phases:

Phase 1 (Education Phase): Over the course of seven weeks, each participating school will work through the online learning content developed and provided by the YEP: BOOST team, whereafter the schools will internally select their best team. In this phase, the schools take on the responsibility to work through the content and guide their learners to develop a set of preliminary business plans.

Phase 2 (Competition Phase): After each school has nominated their best team, these finalist teams will be paired with a group of South African and international student-mentors who will (via online meetings) prepare the high school teams for the competition (i.e. Pitching Day). This will be done over a period of three to four weeks. During the last week, these finalist teams will present their business plans online in front of an experienced panel of three judges – who will nominate the winning teams.

YEP has targeted high school learners between grades 9-11, however, with the addition of the online leg, it has been decided that only grade 10’s will be targeted (to standardize the learning and content created). In both 2018 and 2019, the initiative was run by a mixed team of Stellenbosch and Utrecht students (each year approximately 12 students), who created the learning material and came together in Stellenbosch to facilitate the program during July. Here, the students physically met with-, and taught the high school learners at Stellenbosch campus, where after the different teams had to pitch their business plans against one another, in front of a panel of judges. Prize money was then awarded to the top 3 teams to start their “small businesses”. The 2020 vision was to fully develop the online leg; building a network of maximum 10 schools that will partake in this online learning during 2021; increase Stellenbosch University’s cooperation with other international universities through this project and to attract more student volunteers.

In 2021, ONLY the YEP: BOOST (online leg) will be presented.

What else can you do?

Community service has been an integral part of Stellenbosch University (SUN) for decades albeit in different forms and with shifting emphasis. This platform allows you to make social impact within the university's (7) CSI themes. Click on the links on the themes below to get involved in volunteering and donating opportunities of your choice.