Students from Kepnock State High School were given an insight into entrepreneurship through a program aimed at inspiring and educating young women.
The Academy of Enterprising Girls offers an exciting course focusing on entrepreneurship, design thinking, and how to start up a business.
Kepnock State High School Year 10 Coordinator Nicole Amey said the school came across the program when they reached out to Young Change Agents to expand the innovation programs.
“We were aware of Young Change Agent Programs such as $20 Boss which we had used in our Think and Thrive Program,” Ms Amey said.
“We reached out to Young Change Agents with interest in the Teens In Business and expanding our innovation programme at Kepnock State High School.
“Students have been developing their skills to support them not only in their classes and schoolwork, but also with their personal capability to be active and global citizens.”
Nicole said students from years seven to 10 were selected to take part in the program with activities including lateral thinking and pitching ideas.
“Students from Year 7 to 10 were selected for the session based on their interest in social enterprise, innovation or STEM at school,” she said.
“Students have participated in creativity, collaboration, lateral thinking, big picture and broad questions, ideation, prototyping and pitching their community driven idea.
“Some of our students are critical thinkers with an interest in the area of Humanities too or participate in the Ingenium Award or innovation programmes we run as extra curricula.”
Kepnock State High School year eight student Lara X said the workshop provided her the opportunity to learn a range of new skills.
“During the Enterprising Girls workshop, I was fortunate to participate in various activities including forming new friendships and bonds during the introduction as we were able to discuss and trial new ideas,” Lara said.
“We were also involved in creating a 90 second pitch to fit a focus question we created in our team groups, where we later presented our ideas in front of the group.
“We learnt the basic and specialised skills included in being an entrepreneur and also running charities, businesses and social enterprises which assisted in guiding me toward starting and running my own business.
“The workshop was an amazing and a helpful opportunity that boosted my interest and skill level, and I’m sure did the same for many others.”
Young Change Agents Cat Kitney and Kiran Biswas-Young said the workshops were rewarding.
“We love being able to bring these workshops to regional areas and when we met Nicole from Kepnock State High School and heard about the work she is doing in Bundaberg and her goals for the future, we knew it would be a great opportunity to bring the program to Bundaberg,” they said.
“We find students in regional areas don’t receive the same opportunities as schools in urban areas and it was great to be able to come to Bundaberg and hear the amazing ideas students came up with the help solve problems they identified within the local community.”
The program empowers young women to tackle challenges they see within their communities and ideate and validate potential solutions, helps young women to be problem solvers and equip them to reframe problems they see around them as opportunities to create change and develop their enterprise skills.
Young Change Agents have also run a Discovery Program workshop at Kalkie State School with 40 students.
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