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FIRST NATIONAL MACEDONIAN BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION IN MACEDONIA

Junior Achievement – Macedonia, registered Macedonian non-governmental organization in cooperation with the State University of Tetovo, Macedonia (www.unite.edu.mk), recently received a Democracy Commission Grant from the US Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia, (http://macedonia.usembassy.gov) in order to promote entrepreneurship among university students and post-graduate students in Macedonia. The workshops on business plan creation at multiple locations will be directed by Dr. John Sumansky, (Fulbright scholar from the Misericordia University, Dallas, USA) to support a national business plan competition, which will act as an incentive to entrepreneurship and business creation for students to start and develop their own businesses.

While economic growth is the main objective of the cooperative program, preventing Macedonia’s brain drain is another goal as well as ensuring young people to be aware of entrepreneurial opportunities in Macedonia and to have confidence and skills to act on their desire to be entrepreneurs.

During the Global Entrepreneurship Week that will be held 17-23 November, 2008 (: http://unleashingideas.org/welcome) Macedonian students will be given the opportunity to participate in our first ever national competition.

Competitors of the ten winning teams and their advisors will be invited to Global Entrepreneurship Competition on Friday, 21 November, 2008 in Tetovo and the oral presentation of their business plans will be graded by Macedonian business, government and academic leaders.

Dr. John Sumansky, will be available on the campus of each Macedonian University to explain business plan ideas and answer questions. Check your university schedule to learn when he will be at your university, within the period of 10-31 October, 2008. Contact person: Jasmina Maneva 02/ 32 32 653, 075/ 451 362, e-mail: jmaneva@soros.org.mk; www.jamacedonia.org.mk

Dr. Sumansky: “Entrepreneurs – both big and small – sustain and build our global economy by creating the jobs and wealth of today and tomorrow. In today’s economy, it is especially important to encourage entrepreneurship among our high school and college students who may establish and develop a self-sustaining small business of the world’s next great corporation.”

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JA-YE Europe (www.ja-ye.org/Main/Default.aspx?) and the British Council are pleased to announce the launch of the Skills@Work Challenge, an enterprise competition for young people from vocational schools aged 15-18, from 9 countries in the South East Europe Region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey) and the UK.

The Skills@Work Challenge is a series of national competitions, leading to an international competition, aiming to encourage young people to use their skills in enterprising and innovative ways, ultimately enhancing their employability and entrepreneurial flair. More than 1,000 students are expected to take part in the national competitions this autumn. The business community is asked to give the students a challenge which they have to solve within just a few hours and then make a presentation in front of a jury.

NATIONAL COMPETITION
During the Global Entrepreneurship Week that will be held from 17 – 23 November 2008, (http://unleashingideas.org/welcome) Macedonian students will be given the opportunity to participate in our first ever national competition, organised together with Junior Achievement Macedonia (www.jamacedonia.org.mk)

The national competition will be a one-day ‘challenge’ and will be held in Skopje on 22 November 2008 at the secondary vocational school ASUC ‘Boro Petrusevski’ (http://www.dasu.edu.mk/). It will bring together one hundred contestants from across the country. The day will start with ice breakers and a variety of team-building activities that will allow the contestants to get to know each other, and thus form 5-member teams. During the day, representatives from the business community , Cosmofon (www.cosmofon.com.mk) will give them a ‘challenge’ to which they will have to propose a solution within a very limited timeframe and present it in front of a jury.
 

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
The winners of all national competitions will participate in the international final in Sofia on March 11-13 2009. 45 young entrepreneurs from 9 South East European countries and 15 entrepreneurs from the UK will compete in teams of mixed nationalities.

For more information about the competition, please contact the office of Junior Achievement Macedonia
“The Lisbon agenda starts at school, more enterprise in the classroom means better skills and more business creation,” said Caroline Jenner, CEO of JA-YE Europe. “Taking part in activities like this is one way that many people test new waters, gain valuable experience and learn new skills”.

“Employers know their business stands or falls on their people, how and where they find and retain the right people is a huge challenge for Europe in the global labour marketplace,” said Michael Moore, Skills@Work Project Director, British Council.

Brief description
The objective of the project is to develop entrepreneurship through counselling and training of unemployed young persons. In general activities will contribute to increase the employability of the unemployed people involved in the project and unemployment among the ethnic minorities.

The project will train the participants through theory and practice (simulation, role plays and other practical exercises inside and outside the classroom) to become entrepreneurs, in particular to:
• Develop a business plan
• Get familiar with financial and bank issues.
• Get familiar with legal and administrative (registration) issues.

The target groups consisted of people from different minorities in different locations. At the end of the project it will be possible to compare the outcomes and results achieved by the participants from different target groups. www.imc-sep.com.mk

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The Global Business Ethics Program will be web based and available on the Internet to all of Junior Achievement International’s 112 Member Nations. The Ethics Program will take students from around the world through a twelve-week course simultaneously as they learn about universal and personal values, sound character development, and business ethics. The program will link students via the Internet giving them the opportunity to discuss ethical issues and interact internationally, widening their perspectives on global ethical issues and developing a cross cultural understanding (www.ja-global.org) The issue of diverse cultural character behavior will be critical for students to understand as they mature into adults and assume business positions in the new international market place. The program will be taught in the traditional Junior Achievement format using teachers, local business and community volunteers in the classroom as mentors to guide the learning process with a hands-on personal approach. Students will be assigned weekly Global Partners to communicate with and discuss pre-determined topics related to the week’s lesson.

© JA Macedonia, 2005.