Young and promising: what is youth entrepreneurship?

We at Link Utvikling are cheering for young entrepreneurship and innovation. This autumn we have focused on helping where we can with value creation among young people. As part of that, our CEO Hana Colakovic has been a mentor and adviser when youth companies pitched their ideas to the business community through Ungt Entreprenørskap, and for student companies established by computer engineering students at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. The Link Utvikling team also helped a youth company almost all the way to the top of the Lego League.

It matters that the business community makes room for young entrepreneurs and creates space for creativity. We want to give a nod to Ungt Entreprenørskap, a non-profit organisation that works with the education system and business to give young people and students the chance to test their business ideas. A youth company can have a turnover of up to 140,000 NOK without paying tax or VAT. That makes it low risk to get started, since nobody has to take personal responsibility.

At the end of October, Ungt Entreprenørskap organised an acid test where upper secondary students got to pitch their ideas to the business community. Together with advisers from Deloitte, our CEO took part in the panel and gave advice to six youth companies. Everything from a food box with local produce and redesigned clothing to confetti made from dried flowers was presented, and the feedback from one of the youth companies, Prima Vedlikehold UB from Nordahl Grieg upper secondary school, whom we hosted, was: it was a great meeting where we got new ideas and thoughts on how we can develop our company further in the right direction.

The same month, the computer engineering programme at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences held an innovation day where computing students pitch business ideas with a strong emphasis on technology. Here we at Link Utvikling served as external mentor and adviser for four different student groups, each bringing their own innovative ideas. The range was wide and the solutions were technically promising with good future potential. We applaud the ability of the students to take advice and implement it in their solutions.

The founders of Link Utvikling did student entrepreneurship themselves as students and used the public support system to see their concepts come to life. Among other things they received 1,000,000 NOK from the Research Council of Norway through the StudENT scheme for students with their own ideas. They also got to work on their own concepts as part of their studies, which was decisive for realising the concept.

We have also invited students to work on internal cases for Link Utvikling. Students from fields such as marketing, law, computer technology and innovation have done placements with us. Recently the master students in Innovation and Management at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences received top grades for working on an internal project of ours.

Have you heard of the Lego League? The Lego League is a knowledge and technology competition for children and young people aged 10 to 16. We at Link Utvikling were recently contacted by a lower secondary school in Kabelvåg that had been in dialogue with several other companies about help with their Lego League entry. The class competed against nearly 200 other pupils from Lofoten. The theme of the competition was programming and energy, and the problem the pupils tackled was very interesting.

A group of ninth-graders at Kabelvåg lower secondary school wanted to develop an app called DataReminder. The app would remind users to delete emails and other digital documents to save energy. Users would get access to data showing how much energy had already been saved and how much more could be saved going forward.

After talking with these thoughtful young people, we helped create 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 enjoyable to hand it over to them. And then to hear that their project won the prize for best innovative project and came all the way to second place in the competition.

Working with innovation and entrepreneurship is something we at Link Utvikling do every day, and it is the people with commitment and a drive to create who give us that extra spark to go the extra mile. It is a pleasure to contribute to more joy in creating, and to show that young people are capable of so much more.

Get in touch if you want to hear more.