The British Council, Junior Achievement of Armenia and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia, with exclusive sponsorship from ArmenTel (Beeline brand) launched the second Skills for Employability Youth Entrepreneurship Competition in Armenia in July 2009.

More than 1500 students of VET colleges had participated in the 2008/2009 Skills for Employability Youth Entrepreneurship Competition This year, too, students from Armenia were given the chance to participate in the competition, as well as to use their knowledge to develop innovative solutions from an entrepreneurial point of view.

The 2009/2010 Skills for Employability Youth Entrepreneurship Competition was run in 3 stages, starting with a business essay competition announced among all 82 VET colleges of Armenia. Students were supposed to submit essays on the topic “What I would do if I were the General Director of ArmenTel”. More than 350 VET college students, aged 15-18 and from different regions of Armenia, participated in the first stage.

The students who submitted the 50 best essays were invited to take part in the Skills for Employability Youth Entrepreneurship Competition National Camp, which took place on 9-11 October 2009 in Tsakhkadzor. During this three-day camp, ArmenTel posed a business challenge to participants who were then supposed to develop a solution within a limited time and present it to the jury.

The 50 finalists of the first stage did not know each other from earlier and were split into 10 teams of five each. Having passed the teambuilding and business skills development training conducted by trainers from Junior Achievement of Armenia, they were ready to face the business challenge offered by the business partner of the competition the following day.

The challenge posed during this year’s event asked participants to propose an innovative website that would be of interest to all Armenians, regardless of where they live – in cities or villages, Armenia or the Diaspora. Participants were also supposed to present a promotion strategy to make the website popular

At the end of the day, a diverse range of ideas was presented to the panel of judges - Mr Igor Klimko, General Director of ArmenTel (brand Beeline); Mr Artak Aghbalyan, Head of VET Department of Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia; Mrs Anahit Bakhshyan, Member of the Parliament of Armenia; Mrs Arevik Saribekyan, British Council Director Armenia.

The finalists of the second round (6 students from Yerevan, Kapan, Masis, Abovyan and Yeghegnadzor) got special prizes and were invited to take the English language test, the third stage of this competition.

On 27 November 2009, the national finalists were invited to take a business tour of ArmenTel’s headquarters. On the same day, the results of the competition were summed up and the Award Ceremony of the national finalists took place. The names of the national finalists who will participate in the International Final of the Skills for Employability Enterprise Challenge Competition in Serbia in April 2010 were announced. Thus, Ani Vanyan, student of Yerevan State College of Humanities and Levon Madatyan, student of Yerevan State College of Informatics will go to Belgrade in spring 2010 to represent Armenia in this international competition.

Watch a video about the 2009/2010 competitions in Armenia on YouTube!

For further information about the competition and the project, please contact Skills for Employability Country Project Manager Narek Tovmasyan.