Gen[in] is Queensland’s first ever internationally focused innovation challenge, bringing together students to develop innovative ideas with a global perspective for local impact. It brings an opportunity to develop meaningful connections with a community of like-minded Queensland students, young innovators, mentors and businesses.
Mrs Natasha Purcell, Career Counsellor at Good Shepherd explained the process. “The Gen[in] challenge encourages students to take action. It was an incredible learning journey and our students embraced the opportunity. Not only did they gain hands-on experience on how to ideate, collaborate, plan, network and pitch, they developed real world skills, which they can add to their portfolio and take into their future with confidence.”
After successfully proceeding through round one’s ideation phase by identifying a problem to solve within their local community, the students delivered a 60 second pitch for judges. Round two saw the teams work with mentors to develop and submit their action plans to the panel of judges. The mentors assisted students to identify their target customers, their branding and overall plan for their innovation.
With two of ten teams across Queensland selected to go through to the finals, Good Shepherd’s Learn to Earn team were named winners of the Gen[in] Unicorn Entrepreneur while Team Travelator secured runners up in the Gen[in] Profit Entrepreneur.
Keen to share and progress their idea, Team member Jolie May, who will be graduating this year explains “Our business, Learn to Earn, has the goal of pairing youth and local businesses for employment. We are in the early stages of building this company, which is really going to help Noosa teens, like ourselves, find jobs and help businesses get back on their feet in a time where staff shortages are prevalent. We are thrilled to be bringing this to the Noosa community. For more enquires please contact learntoearnnoosa@gmail.com”.
Team Travelator pitched “Packaged Adventures’ as explained by Year 12 student Hein Reitman “We had the opportunity to pitch our business idea to a panel of judges and an audience of business owners. We plan to build a booking platform for packaged adventures using travel influencers through social media to market to a broader audience and support local businesses. Gen[In] has allowed us to make great business connections and taught us a lot about entrepreneurship. We plan to use our winnings to start our business and are grateful for Gen[In] and UQ Ventures and Study Queensland for providing us an amazing platform from which to launch our business.’
Mrs Purcell continues ‘It’s the first time Good Shepherd competed in Gen[in] and to come first and second was a huge thrill but also confirmation of the ability of our students to have an idea and carry it through to reality.’
