Teams compete for global honours

Teenage entrepreneurs from across New Zealand will battle it out in an international business competition hosted by Massey University later this month.

Prime Minister John Key will officially launch the Global Enterprise Challenge 2009 on the Albany campus on June 20.

The event is organised by the Young Enterprise Trust and the University is the principal sponsor. Eighty year-12 and 13 school pupils will use their business acumen to come up with a new product or service to address a topical issue.

The challenge is issued simultaneously worldwide via live web streaming from Scotland at 9pm NZT on June 21.

Participating schools are from Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Poverty Bay, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, Wanganui, Manawatu, Wellington, Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

The eight teams have 24-hours to prepare their business plan and power point presentation and will be based in boardrooms of businesses including ActionCOACH, Actionmail, ASB, BarterCard, DraftFCB, FedEx Express, PKF Accountants, Renaissance Corp, Russell Investments and The Edge.

They will have access to expertise from mentors from each company as they build a prototype of their design with a $50 budget.

The University is providing a panel of specialists in international business, engineering and science to help the teams. The panel includes product development lecturer Chris Chitty, aka "Dr Robotech - the mad scientist" from TVNZ children's show Let's Get Inventing.

The teams will present their case to a panel of judges on Monday evening and the winning New Zealand team will go into the global final against 20 other countries. The presentation will be videoed, transmitted on the internet and judged overnight by an international panel.

Professor John Raine, regional chief executive of the Albany campus, says: “This initiative promotes creativity, problem solving and team work alongside nurturing good business sense, and the University strongly supports schemes that challenge enterprising young minds. I am sure these students will take our national ingenuity to the next level and be a credit to us on the global stage.”

Every participant in the challenge will receive a scholarship worth $1000 from the University's College of Business and the winning team members will receive $2000 scholarships.

Prior to this, the teams spend Saturday June 20 on the campus competing in the Fed-Ex International Trade Challenge sharpening up their skills. The top 10 students are nominated by their peers and mentors and six will go on to represent New Zealand in the FedEx/JA International Trade Challenge competition in Singapore in August.

Mr Key, North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams and Auckland Mayor John Banks will be on campus at 5.30pm on June 20 for the opening address and to meet the students taking part.

The Global Enterprise Challenge began in 2002. New Zealand has won three times.