We at Link Development cheer for young entrepreneurship and innovation! This autumn we have focused on assisting where we can within value creation among young people. On this occasion, CEO Hana Colakovic has been a mentor and advisor when youth companies have pitched their ideas for the business community through Young Entrepreneurship, and for student companies established by computer engineering students at Høgskulen in Western Norway. In addition, the team in Link Development assisted a youth enterprise almost all the way to the top of the Lego League.
It is important that the business community facilitates young entrepreneurs and creates space for creativity. Here we would like to direct a kudos to Young Entrepreneurship which is a non-profit organization that works with the education system and the business community to facilitate the opportunity for young people and students to have the opportunity to test out their business ideas. A youth enterprise has the possibility to generate sales of up to NOK 140,000 without having to pay taxes and VAT. It contributes to the fact that there is a low risk of establishing oneself, as no one will have to be held personally responsible.
At the end of October, Young Entrepreneurship organized the “Acid Test” where high school students had the opportunity to pitch their ideas to the business community. Along with advisers from Deloitte, our CEO participated in the panel and advised six youth businesses. Everything from a lunch box with local food, a redesign of clothes, to confetti of dried flowers was presented, and the feedback from one of the youth companies - Prima Maintenance UB from Nordahl Grieg vgs. that we had with us was “It was a great meeting where we got new ideas and thoughts on how we can further develop our company in the right direction”.
In the same month, the University of Western Norway's Computer Engineering programme also held an Innovation Day where computer students pitch their business ideas with a focus on technology. Here we assisted in Link Development as an external mentor and advisor to 4 different student groups, each of which came up with their innovative ideas. The span was great and the solutions were promising technical with good future potential. We applaud the ability of students to embrace advice and implement it in their solutions.
The entrepreneurs behind Link Uttveckling have been engaged in student entrepreneurship themselves as students, using the tools to see their concepts come to life. Among other things, they received NOK 1,000,000 from the Norwegian Research Council through the StudentE scheme, which is for students with their own ideas. They also had the opportunity to work on their own concepts implemented in the course of the study, which were decisive for the realization of the concept.
We have also invited students to work on internal cases for Link Development. Students from fields of study such as marketing, law, computer technology and innovation have had internships with us. Recently, the master's degree students in Innovation and Management at the University of Western Norway received top marks when they worked on an internal project we have.
Have you heard of Lego League? The Lego League is a knowledge and technology competition for children and young people aged 10-16. We at Link Utbildung were recently contacted by a middle school from Kabelvåg who had been in dialogue with several other companies about assistance for their contribution to the Lego League. The class participated in a competition with almost 200 other pupils from Lofoten. The theme of the competition was programming and energy, and the issue of the students was very exciting.
A group of young people from 9th grade at Kabelvåg middle school wanted to develop an app called “DataReminder”. The app was there to notify the user to delete emails and other digital documents to save energy. The user would have access to data indicating how much energy had been saved, as well as how much more could be saved in the future.
After speaking with the reflected youth we assisted in creating an interactive design for their app. It took us a few hours to map out what they wanted and produce the design, and it was incredibly nice to be able to hand this over to them. To then hear that their project won the award for best innovative project and came all the way to 2nd place in the competition.
“It is incredibly important that the business community supports young entrepreneurship, so thank you very much to Link Development. The students have learned a lot and acquired important knowledge as future workers.” - Joacim Nyhaugen, subject teacher at Kabelvåg Middle School.
Working with innovation and entrepreneurship is something we at Link Development do on a daily basis, and it is the people with commitment and creativity that give us the extra boost to give that little extra. It is a pleasure to contribute to increased creative joy, as well as show that young people are able to do so much more.
Contact Us if you want to hear more!
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