Teaching the students how to conduct customer interviews as part of our customer development workshop

Working with one of the teams at Initiate 48 July 2019

Hi!I'm delighted to report that 2019 has been yet another year of celebration and achievements for the Generation Entrepreneur organisation, and a year that has made me feel very proud for our young organisation. We’ve worked incredibly hard over the past five years alongside students, teachers and the broader community to create what we believe to be the future of education.This year, we’ve worked with over 1,200 young people across NSW, from Newcastle to Bomaderry. Through our programs, we recognise that no matter where each school sits across socioeconomic or academic ranking, students across the board are begging for an education that challenges and inspires them - that when provided the opportunity, they will work as hard as they can on issues they find meaningful. Throughout this year, we have been reminded and inspired by their example.Alongside our work with students, we have spent our time collaborating with educators across NSW. They have reminded us of the importance of improving our education system to create a better Australia, and we are proud to have helped many of these inspiring leaders with new ways to help their students learn.As we look towards 2020, our team remains committed to inspiring more young people, and to collaborate closely with teachers in helping redesign components of the education curriculum. By doing so, we believe that our programs have the power to ignite and expand the imagination of young student across Australia, to ultimately create an Australia that we can all be proud of.To our friends in schools and our partners in industry and government - our work would not be possible without your enduring support.To you, I say thank you.Jack Leung
CEO, Generation Entrepreneur

WHAT WE DO AT SCHOOLS

Throughout 2019, we had a vision to help students realise their entrepreneurial potential through hands-on, practical experiences shared among their peers. Our in-school program, Startup 101, did exactly this, and it quickly became one of the core programs we became well-known for amongst the secondary education space. 2019 was a year of immense growth and change; a year over which our Startup 101 program evolved tremendously.

WHAT WE'RE PROUD OF

Our Startup 101 programs impacted 968 students across 19 high schools in 2019. On top of that we also ran our largest program to date. 160 Commerce students from Knox Grammar School travelled into the heart of Sydney’s startup ecosystem, settling into the Microsoft Reactor to attend our Startup 101 program.

Although my group didn’t win I am very thankful for this experience. It has allowed me to reflect and grow in many ways. This experience has allowed me to highlight where I need to improve and has strengthened my friendship with those around me.Thank you for coming today and making this possible. It has really encouraged me to keep pursuing my dreams. The journey from start to finish was amazing."- Year 9 Student, Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design

IENTREPRENEUR 2019

We enjoy and reach at every opportunity to work with as many students as possible. This is why towards the end of 2019, we partnered with the NSW Department of Education to run the iEntrepreneur program. As part of this program, we delivered 9 Startup 101 workshops, empowering our students to develop and act upon their entrepreneurial mindsets. With unwavering passion, students worked to solve issues from education to climate change and more.

*Our largest Startup 101 program to date - over 2 days we worked with 160 students from Knox Grammar School at Microsoft Reactor *

iEntrepreneur at Birrong Girls High School

Working with students studying an Innovation course at Emanuel School

2019 SCHOOLS

At Generation Entrepreneur, we have a fundamental belief that entrepreneurial education should be accessible to all high school students. What we consistently see is that entrepreneurial spirit in our youth is not limited by geographical location, school grade and the type of school that students go to.Over 2019, we have had students from 53 schools participate in our programs. We also visited 19 of these schools as part of our Startup 101 program. This year has also been the first where we've travelled to 3 regional schools in the Hunter Region as well as the South Coast.Check out our map to see where we've been over 2019!

Make sure to zoom out to see the regional schools we've worked with!

INITIATE 48: JANUARY

This was our first-ever Western Sydney event, held at the Western Sydney University’s Parramatta City Campus. With 47 students in attendance, we explored bringing Initiate 48 into a new geographical region and servicing a community which needed it most. The students came up with a plethora of ideas, from creating new ways to adopt pets to improving travel planning.One of the star teams was interested in improving the quality of restaurant food through an incentivised review system. This team caught the eye of an Uber employee and had the opportunity to pitch their idea to executives of UberEats in their Sydney office!Initiate 48 always sees an all-star group of mentors and judges, and this event was no different. We were fortunate enough to be joined by 18 mentors from companies including Bain and Co, Canva and CBA. We were joined by Aaron LePoidevin from Uber, Tip Piumsomboon from Blackbird Ventures, and Emma Weston from Agridigital who judged the event.

The winning team, Trekzi, from Initiate 48 January

One lucky team got to pitch their ideas to the team at Uber

Lean Business Canvas workshop at Initiate 48: July

Getting ready for the final pitches!

INITIATE 48: JULY

Initiate 48 in July 2019 saw 45 students descend into the Harry Potter-themed WOTSO Workspace in Pyrmont for the weekend hackathon. With students from a wide range of backgrounds, they worked together to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems with an unprecedented focus on social issues.From exploring healthier ways of creating political debate amongst students, to providing programs to better the lives of our elderly, and even improving mental health through allowing people to interact with animals, this event saw students come together and create something they were passionate about.They were supported by mentors from companies including ANZ Ventures, Deloitte and Quantium, and judged by Garry Visontay from Right Click Capital, Lucy Peng from Deloitte, Selina Samuels from Cluey Learning and Jeremy Cabral from Finder.

INITIATE 48: UNSW GIRLS IN BUSINESS

This year was also the release of our first program, Initiate 48: Girls in Business. Collaborating with the UNSW Business School, we ran our flagship hackathon for female high school students from across NSW. We challenged 22 girls from across the state to explore how they could make Australia a better place, inviting students to create business solutions that tackled the areas of environmental sustainability, social inclusion and many more!Our program wrapped up with a shark tank pitch, with judges Natalie Chapman, part of the Innovation team at ANZ Ventures, and Natalie Salamat, CEO of Industry Events, to provide advice and judge the final pitches alongside Jack.Generation Entrepreneur deeply believes in the importance of equal representation across all facets of society, and have been very proud to work alongside the UNSW Business School to further this cause. We’re incredibly proud of the hard work the girls put in over the weekend, and we’re excited to see where they head next.

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Former Olympian and current UNSW Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer Hannah Davis delivering the opening address for the event

Final Pitches held in the Dean's Lounge of UNSW Business School

OUR FIRST ONLINE PROGRAM

Australian Innovators’ Challenge was Generation Entrepreneur’s first exploration into providing entrepreneurial education through an online platform. This was the second event of the year that was sponsored by the City of Sydney. Students came together within their school-based teams to learn through online videos, complete tasks and eventually submit a final video pitch. The winners of the online component were invited to spend a week at Microsoft Reactor, where they were exposed to expert mentorship to further their understanding of entrepreneurship.This project allowed students to begin thinking about entrepreneurship in a low barrier, easy-to-understand environment. It also ensured that students who could not access our regular programs, due to cost or location, could still begin developing their entrepreneurial mindset.Our two winning teams came from Reddam House and Baulkham Hills High School. The Reddam House team created an innovative hardware solution to reduce the roadkill on Australian roads while the Baulkham Hills team created a clothing exchange platform to tackle the issue of textile waste.

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Final pitches held at Microsoft Reactor

2019 Australian Innovators' Challenge cohort

OUR HIGH SCHOOL INCUBATOR PROGRAM

Fresh from the highs of our 2018 Incubator Program partnered with the Department of Education, we sought to continue providing high school students an avenue so they can work on long term projects. This year, our 2019 Incubator Program, sponsored by the City of Sydney, focused on bringing the incubator teams ongoing support from experienced professionals.We brought together a panel of mentors from esteemed companies including Bain & Co, Uber and Westpac to hand pick a team they would be willing to work with over the next 6 months. After a gruelling selection process we had our final 6 teams.We were also fortunate enough to have Aeona sponsor coworking space for the teams and to let them immerse themselves in the startup world. Each student startup had ongoing mentoring sessions which were supported by the masterclasses run by the Generation Entrepreneur team, Microsoft and more.

WHAT WE'RE PROUD OF

Our young entrepreneurs made it into the press! We’ve had two press releases from this year’s cohort of high school startups.Startup Daily’s feature of Connor and his business Stakk traces his journey to being a startup founder and how he manages running a business alongside the HSC.Yakka, co-founded by Hannah and Bagavathy, went live on ABC Radio to talk about fixing ‘crap’ work experience placements.

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2019 Generation Entrepreneur Incubator cohort

Hustle time with team Immigreat from Sydney Technical High School

Special guest Alan Huynh from Microsoft teaching the cohort about the importance of story-telling in a pitch

WHAT WE'RE PROUD OF

ZEST Awards
Early this year, Generation Entrepreneur was nominated as a finalist for Exceptional Social Enterprise within Greater Western Sydney for impacting over students after launching crowdfunding campaign as part of the City of Parramatta’s Pitch for Good Parramatta program.Mosman Youth: Startup Skills
We are always inspired by other organisations that seek to empower young people in local areas. Mosman Youth, a hub for youth services is definitely one of these, and we worked together to deliver a one day hackathon for the local youth.City of Sydney Visiting Entrepreneurs Program: Launching into Space with Dr. Christyl Johnson, NASA
We had the opportunity to partner with the City of Sydney for the event: Launching into Space with Dr. Christyl Johnson, NASA. Jack, our CEO got to sit down with Christyl and talk about breaking barriers for equality and inspiring the next generation to be at the forefront of innovation.AIS Conference
Jack, our CEO and Esmond, our head of Professional Development were invited to speak at a conference held by the Association of Independent Schools NSW. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to provide our perspective on the new Commerce syllabus and how to implement the curriculum in classrooms.

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Startup Skills program in collaboration with Mosman Youth

Jack, our CEO, chatting to Dr. Chrystal Johnson from NASA as part of the City of Sydney's Visiting Entrepreneurs Programs