Mentoring in the Young Entrepreneurs program is an opportunity to experience a
special and unique form of social leadership. Mentors gain priceless values ...
Young entrepreneurs - an appeal to the leader in you Mentoring in the Young Entrepreneurs program is an opportunity to experience a special and unique form of social leadership. Mentors gain priceless values and business understanding, which also help open doors to advanced programs and advanced degrees. By Eleanor Weisbrot Second-year student at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications
The Young Entrepreneurs mentoring program takes place in the framework of the Entrepreneurship Center at IDC Herzliya. This year, the Entrepreneurship program will hold a unique workshop for the business mentors and students volunteering in the program, to increase their knowledge of the field of entrepreneurship. A meeting was held on July 13 to introduce this workshop.
The Panlock by Banana, which took first place in this year's national Young Entrepreneurs competition
The role of the students in the project is to provide business guidance. The student mentor leads the group as it takes its first steps, helps the youngsters to develop creative and businessoriented thinking, and accompanies the group from the stage of coming up with the idea and raising the initial capital, through implementation, to the stage of dividing up the profits. The activity takes
place over a period of nine months, mostly during the afternoon hours, in junior high schools. The instructor meets the group once a week for three hours, and once a month these meetings are also attended by the regional coordinator. In addition, the mentor participates in the events that are held in the course of the year, such as professional training sessions, sales fairs, and so on. Young Entrepreneurs Israel (YE Israel) is a not-for-profit organization that exposes young people to the world of entrepreneurship and business, and encourages independent thinking and economic initiative. The aim is to cultivate business entrepreneurship and leadership (what we at IDC begin learning in Year 1, they already discover at a much younger age). Some 3,000 schoolchildren take part in the program in Israel every year, organized into 180 groups around the country. In the program, young people aged 15 to 17 set up a business and are responsible for its development and its financial success. The products and services are the fruit of their own initiative, planning and development. They are accompanied by an educational adviser from their school, and a team of volunteer business mentors (students),
and the program follows a structured set of training materials. Professional training sessions on business topics are held in the course of the year, as well as regional events: teambuilding days, skills days, a regional sales fair and a regional and national competition. The group that wins the national competition represents Israel in the international finals in Europe. All Young Entrepreneur activities at the Center are entirely on a voluntary basis. The Entrepreneurship Center and YE Israel have collaborated for the past eight years, and Professor Ronen Israel, head of the Entrepreneurship Center and of the unique GEMBA program for entrepreneurship, serves as a member of the organization’s board of directors. Shay Cohen is responsible for the program on behalf of the Entrepreneurship Center, together with Professor Ronen Israel and Ms Ricky Levy, Young Entrepreneurs coordinator for the Sharon region. Shay is an IDC Herzliya graduate in law and business administration, specializing in entrepreneurship (the Zell program), and currently serves as CEO and founder of a number of start-up companies focusing on green enterprise. He has volunteered in the Young Entrepreneurs program for the past five years. According to him, "the program is an excellent reflection of who you are leader, manager, entrepreneur, VP marketing and sales and more than anything else, of your ability to lead. It is not only the children who get the opportunity to fulfill themselves, but also the students. The business mentors give a great deal, but in return they receive precious values and business understanding. The
mentor develops training and leadership abilities, and the children imitate the leader that the students find within themselves". It should be pointed out that the project requires a big investment, but the project's investment in the student is also considerable. In fact, the project provides students with "loss-free practical experience". It is an opportunity to gain experience in the business world, to make mistakes and learn from them, mistakes which, in the outside world, could lead to heavy financial losses. In addition, the project is a way of “opening doors”, since it provides an opportunity for learning by doing, and this is where its importance, its strength and its power lies. Gal Shapira and Amit Streichman, second-year students of law and business at IDC Herzliya, this year mentored the Banana group, which developed the Panlock, a product designed to help transport pans containing hot or cold dishes in the trunk of a car. The Panlock won first place in this year's national Young Entrepreneurs competition. They have this to say: "The Young Entrepreneurs project is an unforgettable experience for any student, and especially for students of business. In addition to the enormous sense of giving that you get from this project, in which you give yourself over entirely to 14 and 15 year olds who are meeting the ‘real’ world of business for the first time, it is also an exceptional learning experience as you find yourself putting into practice abstract theories and concepts that you have learned during your academic studies. You learn a great deal about the real world, meet people from industry, see factories, and, in fact, discover every part of the process of setting up a
company, building a product, marketing it and selling it. It is a wonderful opportunity to experience and taste the entire range of positions that exist in a company, and in addition, provides enormous experience in project management, as well as in mentoring youngsters. The project provides almost unlimited resources and a great deal of help from outside entities, whose only aim is good of the project. We learned a great deal and enjoyed ourselves very much. This is an experience that we will take with us for many years to come." No less important, the qualities that are acquired through participation in the program provide added value for those seeking admission to advanced study programs, such as MBA programs in leading schools in Israel and abroad. For questions, clarifications and to register for the project, please contact Shay Cohen at 052-8974451, or by email:
[email protected] Further information can also be found on the organization’s website: www.yazamim.org.il
