This year’s winners of Start-Up of the Year Award at the Junior Achievement Young Enterprise (JAYE) national finals are FEMA students Michela Pace, Martina Cilia La Corte, Luca Falzon, Lara Sciberras and Emily Sciberras with their start-up SilentSave.
The team completed a winning streak that also included the Chamber of Commerce Membership Award, the PwC Concept Validation Award, Tech.mt Digital Innovation Award, the Switch Take Me To Market Award and the Public Vote Award.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise Ministry Sustainability Award was presented to another group of FEMA students Adam McCarthy, Mark Mamo, and Adam Sargen, with their start-up Unpuzzling Food.
The Dean of FEMA, Prof. Frank Bezzina has supported the JAYE Start-Up Programme as a compulsory study unit right from the start, firmly believing in the formation of an entrepreneurial environment within higher education to foster a new generation of talents and create a winning entrepreneurial mindset.
FEMA is proud to provide its students with an innovative platform to achieving their entrepreneurial goals both locally and internationally, thereby helping to shape Malta’s economy on a global scale. Students at FEMA have the opportunity to road test and explore entrepreneurial ideas throughout their studies and develop leadership skills with innovative lectures, working on the principle of applying theory to practice and learning by doing.
FEMA embraces the importance of entrepreneurship and in fact provides four compulsory study units which include “MGT 2348: Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneurial Mindset and New Value Creation” and “MGT3100/3200: the JA-YE Start Up Entrepreneur (1 & 2)”.
The winners, with their start-up SilentSave, have now set up to take part virtually in multiple prestigious European competitions, including the JA European Enterprise Challenge, competing against approximately 15 other countries for the European title of ‘Start-up of the Year’. This year’s edition is being hosted and coordinated by JA Lithuania as part of the European Entrepreneurship Festival, with the European Awards Night on the 15th of July in the presence of some members of the European Commission.
An immense appreciation to JA-YE and Ms Antonietta Rosiello for mentoring the FEMA students during this challenging journey.