For two years already Junior Achievement and the British Council deliver the Skills@Work Challenge, an enterprise competition for young people from vocational schools aged 15-18, from 9 countries in the South East Europe Region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey) and the UK.

The Skills@Work Challenge is a series of national competitions, leading to an international competition, aiming to encourage young people to use their skills in enterprising and innovative ways, ultimately enhancing their employability and entrepreneurial flair. Last year more than 1000 students took part in the national competitions.

The competition is officially supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science and is held in partnership with Microsoft Bulgaria.

The national competition in 2009 was a one-day ‘challenge’ to take place in Sofia in November. In mid October Junior Achievement Bulgaria opened the selection process for students from the whole country who applied for participation in the challenge. The selected applicants got together in Sofia for the contest. The competition started in the morning on 20 November and the participants divided in groups worked for a period of 6 hours looking for a solution of a business case given by our business partner Microsoft Bulgaria. The initial requirements for their solutions were to be innovative, efficient, feasible and of social benefit. Each team had to come up with a business strategy and present it to the jury and the other teams.

The winners of the national competition will take part in the international final in Serbia in 2010 after a successful completion of an English language test.

Take a look at the Skills@Work Challenge video.

Skills@Work is a part of the Skills for Employability programme.