25 youth companies and start-ups at The JAYE Malta National Youth Fair

2018 marks the 30th year of the Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Malta Foundation in Malta. Every year since 1988 young, budding entrepreneurs get together with their friends and colleagues in sixth form and (since 2014) university level to setup a mini-company or start-up as part of the JAYE Malta Company Programme and Start Up Programme.

For this reason, the theme for this year’s National Youth Fair was “follow their footsteps” with a selection of alumni and collaborators having their achievements printed across three floors of The Point shopping mall on celebratory footsteps to inspire this year’s cohort of young business leaders.

With 16 teams participating in the Company Programme and 9 in the Start-up programme close to 150 students displayed their entrepreneurial flair to the public and independent sets of judges during the course of the day-long event at The Point Shopping Mall in Sliema. Products and services ranged from technology based mobile applications addressing various social causes, to hand made and customised artefacts and conveniences.

Since 1988, when the organisation was established as Young Enterprise, over 9,000 young, aspiring entrepreneurs have experienced what it means to start and run their own mini-business as part of the post-secondary Company Programme. Today some of Malta’s foremost business owners and industry champions can call themselves JAYE Achievers having spent their first year in sixth form planning to take over the world with their business idea.

Amongst notable youth who participated in the JAYE Malta entrepreneurship programmes and today are leading individuals in their respective fields one finds Ira Losco and Christabelle Borg singer song writers who have/will represent Malta at the Eurovision Song Contest, Gianni Zammit co- founder/director at JUGS Malta and Vibe FM, Xandru Grech ex-national athlete and medallist at various Small Nations games, Matthew Xuereb, Head of News at The Times of Malta, Ian Casolani owner of Belair Property, and Simon Azzopardi Co-Founder of Silicon Valletta and Sherpa.

All participating teams were visited by the Minster for Education Evarist Bartolo who congratulated the youth on their initiative and entrepreneurial drive to go beyond the teachings of their curricula. Minister Bartolo also encouraged educators to promote further participation in learning by doing initiatives like the JAYE programmes. This sentiment was also shared by opposition spokesperson for Education, Clyde Puli and Karl Gouder, opposition spokesperson for Employment; the latter also a JAYE Achiever, past chief executive and board member of JAYE Malta.

All participating teams will vie for the title of Company or Start Up of the Year at the Finals to be held on the 26th and 27th of May Respectively. National winners will represent Malta at the European Finals in June and July. Over the years Malta has won the European Company of the Year title four times and, just last year, won the European Enterprise Challenge for the first time in its brief 3-year participation history.