Photo credit: David Mallia, MD Photography
Following last Wednesday’s Start Up Programme Finals, we are pleased to announce that Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy (FEMA) and DegreePlus participants have once again nabbed an SUP Award; Freshy.io were the overall winners of the JAYE Start Up Programme, also offered through the DegreePlus Modules DGP0110 & DGP0120.
Freshy.io is a company made up of 4 University of Malta students offering an application through which cafeterias and restaurants can sell excess food. Users on the other hand are able to get notified about fresh food nearby which will be discounted.
Mr Gleb Eliseev & Mr Anatoliy Gatt registered for the JAYE Start Up Programme through the DegreePlus modules and made part of Freshy.io, together with Ms Valeria Lobanova and Ms Svetlana Mitrakhovich from the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, UoM. FEMA supported this initiative by including 2 study units: EMA 3100 & EMA 3200.
JAYE is very happy to have an interdisciplinary Start Up team winning this year’s Award, and representing Malta in the Junior Achievement Europe Enterprise Challenge in Romania this July.
Professor Joseph Grima, Rector’s Delegate for DegreePlus commented, "We are delighted to work with the well-established JAYE programme and our collaboration has proved to be very successful and fruitful. It is permitting our University students to experience first-hand what it means to start and run a business, something which will certainly help their overall professional development. We hope that other University students will be encouraged by this achievement and will take the plunge to follow the footsteps of Freshy.io and join the JAYE-DegreePlus units which will be offered in the next academic year."
Providing Entrepreneurship Programmes at all levels of education to students and youth aged 7 to 30 is no mean feat. Yet Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Malta Foundation does just that.
On Wednesday 18 May 2016, JAYE Malta concluded its Start Up Programme offering tertiary education students the opportunity to create, develop and pitch an investment proposal for their very own Start Up Company. Following the success of over 25 years offering Sixth Form students an opportunity to participate in the JAYE Malta Company Programme, it is a much awaited milestone that the Foundation has achieved in its mission to deliver entrepreneurship programmes to students and youth throughout Malta and Gozo.
Eleven teams totalling 46 students from various Faculties within the University of Malta and St. Martin’s Institute completed the seven-month course which took them through a number of gruelling assessment stages in their journey towards developing an ‘investment-ready’ business concept. The stages included idea generation, drawing-up and presentation of a marketing and business plan, development of a prototype and public exhibition, whilst finally putting forward an investment proposal to a sizable audience.
Teams were vying for the coveted prize of JAYE Start Up Programme Malta title holders together with the opportunity of banking €2,000 in seed capital thanks to the support of the Malta Communications Authority.
In front of guests and relatives that filled the Valletta Campus’ Aula Magna auditorium, each of the eleven teams presented their product proposal and recounted their JAYE Start Up Programme experience before the 2016 roll of honours were announced. These were:
- JAYE Malta Start Up Winners: Freshy.io
- Best Business Potential Award supported by the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry: Visual.io. A company made up of 3 University of Malta FEMA Students offering a 'Faster, Better and Reliable' recruitment platform which focuses on Innovation.Visuals.io is an online recruitment platform, it will simply solve two problems which are recurrent in Malta (and abroad): Finding a job in the iGaming industry is a pain, time consuming and difficult; and iGaming HR departments spend an enormous amount of time and money trying to find a good candidate.
Amongst the guests in attendance on the night, Mr Daniel Robinson Head of Retail banking and Wealth Management at HSBC Bank Malta, main commercial sponsor of the organisation, delivered a congratulatory speech to the participants on their successful journey through the JAYE Start Up Programme, highlighting the need for increased participation by students in entrepreneurship programmes that offer hands-on experiential opportunities to generate, develop and build new entrepreneurial talent. With the opportunity given to University and MCAST registered students, youth in Malta & Gozo have the ideal platform to explore their business acumen and transform their dreams into reality.
JAYE Malta is very proud that many alumni of its programmes have taken stock of the lessons learnt and continued their careers to set up their own business as a result of their involvement with the organisation. Through the Start Up Programme Malta it hopes to further encourage youth to take the plunge into becoming entrepreneurs. The association of the organisation with some of Malta’s leading businesses and entities such as HSBC, PwC, ICAEW, TAKEOFF, CIM, the Malta Chamber and the MCA lends not only much needed financial support to deliver the programme, but also invaluable expertise and industry specific know-how to the participants as they prepare to take on the world of work and employment. These were messages that resonated in the address of PwC Senior Territory Partner, and Head of the Independent Panel of Judges, Mr. Kevin Valenzia.
Learning by doing is the main focus of all JAYE Malta programmes and the guiding principle for participants’ involvement in the Organisation’s programmes which provide the practical experiences required to further enable their career development.
JAYE Malta would like to congratulate all the participating teams for reaching this milestone.
For further information about the programme please visit the website or email, or on 2124 4991.