JADE at European Business Summit 2015

Written by Alexandru Ene, Vice President – Head of Communications at JADE, European Confederations of Junior Enterprises

In 2015, JADE Network gets under the lens during one of the largest concentrations of business and political leaders of Europe with one sole purpose in mind: to challenge opinion leaders to go deeper into the subject of Junior Enterprises, to understand why and how our concept is a successful practice that needs to be multiplied, recognised and valued.

With the theme ‘Europe 4.0 – Delivering a vision for the future of Europe’, EBS 2015 will focus on how industry and society are impacted by digitalisation: the driving force behind the fourth industrial revolution.

Entrepreneurial Skills: What, when and how should you develop them?

Meet Experts: 6.05.2015, 15:00-16:00 – Networking Village, Egmont Palace, Bruxelles

For many years, young Europeans have sought to become more employable and get better jobs. Now it’s time that they understand and see entrepreneurship as a valid career path, and actually seek to create these jobs, and even new ones. This is not an option, it’s a necessity, and it does not start with a policy, it starts with a open mind, and most importantly, with the entrepreneurial mindset.

We find ourselves on the verge of a new Industrial Revolution, the forth in the chain, one that could bring on the market so many new things, so fast, that one of our key competences could be to adapt to ever changing trends and paradigms. Learning has become so much more than the traditional process of assimilating information for practical use: it is now a way to design your life. In JADE, we believe in the power of behaving entrepreneurial, by acting first and learning out of practical necesity, in different situations, many undexpected, many caracterized by some degree of risk. But there is no methodology to do so, no common understanding of that as far as we can reach to academic programs and other opportunities that students have access to. It is unclear what are those entrepreneurial skills. And confronting realities such as skills mismatch of graduates facing the labour market, it is unclear when and how we sould develop them.

We have been exploring the skills mismatch between what universities teach and what businesses look for.  How can we, as young people and agents of change, contribute to reduce this gap? As a premiere for JADE, we will debate this issues in a session during European Business Summit. The workshop is the result of a report based on a European event that brought together senior representatives from Microsoft, EY, Solvay Brussels School and European Commission and leaders of 13 organisations, representing 37 million European youth. What  good practices can we bring to bridge the gap? Join our session!

The Junior Enterprise solution

The JADE solution for employability at the moment of speaking is the Junior Enterprise Concept: student-run business with the mission to do real services for companies while investing their income back into the business itself, for their own education.

Our network covers thousands of students around Europe in hundreds of non-profit businesses.

Before they graduate, students in Junior Enterprises work with real clients from the market and get paid for real products or services which they entirely develop and manage. By investing their income back into the Junior Enterprise they learn about quality, the real value of their knowledge and skills, while also practicing social responsibility.

In Europe, the European Confederation for Junior Enterprises, JADE, represents more than 20000 students, putting together all the Junior Enterprises that create value for each other throughout Europe, while constantly creating jobs for young people. Our activities fit perfectly into the EU Youth Strategy for 2010-18 that focuses on to providing more and equal opportunities for young people in education and in the job market and encouraging young people to actively participate in society.

A study of the European Commission from 2012 provided that the Junior Enterprise is a best practice for students and the concepts enables a 25% chance of our members to be self-employed entrepreneurs, more than the average European student with business studies.

We are looking forward to have interesting debates and intense networking sessions with people that have the power and authority to make the change and to be inspired by more than over 150 speakers that will focus on how industry and society are facing the digital revolution, within the exciting context of the new mandate of the EU Institutions. We are in to shape a better Europe: more competitive, more inclusive and more sustainable.

For more information about JADE activities, visit our webpage: www.jadenet.org