Illuminate NextGen Challenge
Last week, seven year 10 commerce students got the opportunity to represent the school by participating in the Illuminate NextGen Challenge. This challenge was hosted at Deakin University and a number of different schools across Melbourne competed.
,, This innovative education program is run by nextgen Challenge and arranges students into teams to develop a business that solves a problem in the community in three to five days. A detailed business plan is required with financial forecasting, marketing, advertising and everything associated with setting up and running a successful business. Teams then competed against each other across their region.
The program evoked the inner social entrepreneur in students by making them come up with a business idea that would have a positive impact on society. There were some great ideas among the teams including “Homes4Homes” (a business that gave homeless people a place to stay for the night), “Wander” (an organisation focused on promoting small businesses through advertising), and the Ivanhoe Commerce students’ business, “A Helping Hand”, which aimed to provide homeless people with the necessary skills to get themselves off the streets.
Overall, the week was very challenging and forced students to work consistently as a team. It was wonderful to see the Ivanhoe students rising to the challenge and enjoying the experience. It really gave students a valuable insight into what is required to run a business and how to cope with stress, team management and independent learning that will undoubtedly help them during the rest of their time at School and in their future working lives.
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