Concurso e Mostra Nacional de Jovens Empreendedores

The National Competition for Young Entrepreneurs aims to promote creative and social entrepreneurship, encouraging the development of innovative ideas and businesses, and supporting students in achieving social changes. In addition, it offers a great opportunity for students to collaborate as a team, develop an entrepreneurial idea/project and introduce it to a range of leading juries in entrepreneurship. In total 80 projects will be selected to participate in the Entrepreneurship Exhibition.

The National Competition for Young Entrepreneurs aims to promote creative and social entrepreneurship, encouraging the development of innovative ideas and businesses, and supporting students in achieving social changes.
In addition, it offers a great opportunity for students to collaborate as a team, develop an entrepreneurial idea
/project; introduce it to a range of leading juries in entrepreneurship; thus, enhancing the development of entrepreneurial skills.
On the other hand, it will stimulate the development of new ideas and innovative solutions, led by the young people themselves, and will create a positive social impact.

One of the advantages of the competition is its comprehensiveness in terms of target audience, given that it places students attending secondary, vocational and higher education in the same competition.
The competition is organized in two anchor categories: Creative and Social Entrepreneurship
The themes will be broad enough to allow the greatest number of potential candidates from different subjects. The themes will focus on social, environmental, and creative impacts.
- 80 projects will be selected to participate in the Exhibition;
- The Exhibition will take place for 3 days, in Porto city.
- During the Entrepreneurship Exhibition, the participants will present their ideas/projects to the judges, a group of successful entrepreneurs, and to a wider audience: visitors, other participants, teachers, family members, sponsors.
- At the end of each presentation (10 minutes), the judges will ask questions that they consider relevant for the decision making.
- The 3 best projects in each category will receive a prize (secondary education and higher education).
- There may be special prizes sponsored by partners.

The Young Entrepreneurs Contest and Exhibition was based on the model of the national science contest and exhibition organized by the Youth Foundation, but with a focus on youth entrepreneurship.

Youth entrepreneurship has always been a strategic bet of the Youth Foundation, which sees entrepreneurship as the best way to contribute to the transition of young people from the education system to active and professional life.

The National Competition for Young Entrepreneurs is based on the pillar of education for young entrepreneurship as it contributes to the appreciation of young people, teachers and schools dedicated to innovation and creativity issues, and the development of an entrepreneurial spirit.

The results aimed at young people attending secondary or higher education, which in two editions has engaged 349 participants, 142 projects, and 77 teachers from 97 participating schools.

The National Competition and Exhibition of Young identifying itself with its purposes, as a vehicle for promoting entrepreneurship, seen as one more driving and catalytic mechanism for the creation of companies/own jobs as well as direct and/or indirect jobs, and inevitably contributing to the increase and renewal, namely of the local and regional economies and of the surrounding business fabric.

It also introduces the social dimension of entrepreneurship and discover the talented young entrepreneurs who will face the needs and challenges of contemporary society.

The National Competition for Young Entrepreneurs and the National Exhibition of Young Entrepreneurs are part of the Gera Talentos Project, a structuring program to support qualified and creative entrepreneurship, promoted by the Youth Foundation, which aims to foster, recognize, distinguish and reward innovation, creativity and talent of young scientists and entrepreneurs.

It distinguishes itself from other competitions, due to its scope in terms of target audience, placing in the same competition students attending secondary, vocational and higher education.

Participants have to develop posters, presentations and, where possible, prototypes to display their projects. For this purpose, many of them use hand skills, recyclable materials.

We hope that all participants, students and teachers, have found an incentive to participate and to strengthen their citizenship, and, in the particular domain of this initiative, that it might contribute to sustainable development, in areas such as the Green Economy, Creative Industries and the development of creative and articulated solutions to social problems.
It becomes essential that the various agents develop actions to foster this entrepreneurial culture, in the belief that a well-prepared young person will be more likely to enter the labour market and subsequently be more successful: personally, socially and economically.

It offers a great opportunity for students to collaborate as a team, develop an entrepreneurial idea/project supported by their teachers; introduce the idea/project to a range of leading juries in the area of entrepreneurship; thus enhancing the development of entrepreneurial skills.

With the National Competition for Young Entrepreneurs, the Youth Foundation intends to contribute to an increasingly early awakening to entrepreneurship, as well as to the appreciation of young people, teachers and schools dedicated to innovation issues, creativity and the development of an entrepreneurial spirit. All students could participate even if they are disadvantage people. In other hand, the competition promotes social entrepreneurship, encouraging the development of innovative ideas and businesses, and supporting students in achieving social changes.
At a time when Portugal is faced with the need to respond to the challenge of fighting the high rate of youth unemployment, the initiative «National Competition for Young Entrepreneurs», aimed at young audiences still in school or in school context transitioning to active life, presents itself, on the one hand, as an instrument that enhances the reflection of these audiences for the creation of ideas and solutions aimed at their own professional integration, whose reality is increasingly demanding and complex; on the other hand, it favors the proximity between the school/educational environment as a dynamic and mediating focus for debate and learning for an entrepreneurial, critical, creative, socially sensitive and, these days, increasingly precocious culture.

Project partners participate at various levels. In addition to co-financing, most partners identify a representative to participate as a jury member, which allows constant monitoring of the selection and election process of the winners. The exhibition of the projects has been visited by political decision makers and by business angels who claim on knowing all the represented projects.

Partnerships are a great help in improving the contest and the Young Entrepreneurship Exhibition. Some partners participate by co-funding the global contest and the final event, other participate as members of the jury, some concentrated on strengthening co-operation in the social field.

It becomes crucial to stimulate and reward the teamwork established between school agents: students, teachers and schools, organizing a competition that wants to place itself at national level as a determining factor for the sharing of ideas, creativity, overcoming challenges, social innovation.

80 projects will be selected to participate in the exhibition. To select the projects the jury accesses the contest platform to be able to evaluate the submitted projects, in the 1st phase.

During the Entrepreneurship Exhibition, the participants will present their ideas/projects to the judges, a group of successful entrepreneurs, and to a wider audience: visitors, other participants, teachers, family members, sponsors.
At the end of each presentation, the judges will ask questions that they consider relevant for the decision making.