More than 60,000 students are expected to participate in the 8th edition of the Stanbic National Entrepreneurship Championship under the theme “powering innovation for job creation”.
These include 40 maiden participants, who have been selected countrywide to compete in the in the business ideas challenge, with government owned entities dominating entries, taking 57 slots.
Cathy Adengo, Stanbic Uganda Head of Sustainability said this challenge was set up in order to sustainably drive Uganda’s growth, they must invest in a reliable pipeline of innovative entrepreneurs to build a new generation of businesses and create high quality jobs for the millions of young Ugandans completing school every year.
Schools in central Uganda dominated the entries with 25 slots, 21 slots went to Eastern Uganda, while 18, and 17 slots went to Western and Northern Uganda respectively.
The annual challenge, is aimed at empowering and equipping the participants into a generation of innovative job creators with knowledge and life skills such as managing personal finance, entrepreneurship, and business management.
The Stanbic National Schools Championship is a four-category competition including Startup Challenge; BizGrow Challenge; AlumGrow Challenge and TeachGrow Challenge.
“We are particularly pleased to see forty new schools join the competition for the very first time, this goes to show the growth in interest over the last seven years; another highlight is the dominance of government owned schools who have taken 57 of the 100 slots available.We can’t wait to see the level of innovation they show in their respective pitches” said Diana Ondoga, Stanbic Bank’s Corporate Social Investment Manager,
Participating students will have to compete in several qualifying rounds, including attending a boot-camp after which a winner is identified at a grand finale in September.
