Young Jamaicans Cop Top Awards at Global Entrepreneurial Conference
Kingston, August 12, 2011- A contingent of five young Jamaicans took home several awards from a recently concluded global young entrepreneurial competition in Ontaria, Canada on Thursday, August 11, 2011. The competition was held as a part of the Junior Achievement Next Generation Future Leaders Forum at the Queen’s Business School. The conference was held from August 7-11.
The Jamaican delegation consisted of 21 year-old Jerome Cowan from the Lead Youth Club, Shereen Henry, 19, from St Jago High School, Kevonnie Whyte, 16, from from Ardenne High School, Damion Laylor, 22, of RISE Life Management and Oshane Allen, 18, from Jamaica College were the other four delegates representing Jamaica at the entrepreneurial conference. Wilfred Johnson, western regional manager of Junior Achievement Jamaica, accompanied the team.
“The conference participants were broken into several teams and asked to come up with the ultimate business,” Cowan explained, “There were a number of categories for awards and my group won the award for the product with the best leadership in technology.”
Whyte got the leadership in entrepreneurship award, the leadership in social responsibility award went to Henry, while Allen and Laylor took home the leadership in inspiration award
The trip, which was made possible by Junior Achievement Jamaica and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), enabled the participants to face real business challenges and develop strategies in collaboration with their global peers, university faculty and leaders from the business industry. The experiences are aimed at preparing them with leadership skills so they can lead organizations of the future. The contingent returned to the island on Friday, August 12.
This 40th staging of the Next Generation Leaders Forum, welcomed over 200 youth from over 15 countries across the globe. These persons were chosen to attend based on their outstanding performance in the Junior Achievement Company of Entrepreneurs Programme in Jamaica. This programme equips youth the knowledge and skills needed to start and sustain a business. Teams from various schools and community based organizations are guided by a team of volunteers to start and run a business.
Junior Achievement Jamaica is a registered non-government organization. As a member nation of Junior Achievement Worldwide, we are the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating students about work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programmes. Junior Achievement programmes help prepare young people for the real world by showing them how to generate wealth and effectively manage it, how to create jobs which make their communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace. Through partnership with the USAID and the Ministry of Education and other private sector organizations, Junior Achievement Jamaica reaches over 5,000 students annually.
