Young entrepreneurs key to improving GDP

Media Release                                                                                                                                                                                    November 5, 2010

Supporting our young entrepreneurs key to improving New Zealand’s GDP

 
A group of Lynfield College students’ idea of breathing new life into old denim garments has turned out to be a huge profitable business venture.

So much so that the students’ Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) business, under the aptly named “Jeanius”, has helped them net this year’s top regional prize and a place in the national finals, held in Wellington this week.

Unitec Institute of Technology’s Department of Management and Marketing is the West Auckland regional coordinator of the scheme and has been providing helpful tools and resources for the 16 teams from secondary schools in the area that participated this year.

Jeanius’ idea to re-use old demin jeans has been so successful that the business has expanded overseas where it has clients in Australia. Since the business began in March, Jeanius as made a net profit of more than $3200.

The group’s success is quite timely after a 2025 Taskforce report released this week showed that New Zealand is no closer to closing the income gap with Australia despite the Government’s goal of equaling Australia’s GDP by 2025.

Unitec Head of Department of Management and Marketing Robert Davis says it is important that we continue to support our young entrepreneurs to help shorten the gap between New Zealand and Australia.

“It is these kinds of initiatives that will help the New Zealand economy grow as they encourage our future business leaders to come up with innovative ideas and run successful operations,” says Davis.

“The students who participated in this year’s YES programme are going to be our future entrepreneurs and business leaders so Unitec is pleased it is able to play its part to help them get there.”

Unitec is the only tertiary institute acting as a regional coordinator for the YES programme.

“We identified at a very early stage how important it was for us to support such a successful programme so we have taken on a very hands-on approach getting out and about to all the schools involved and helping all the teams,” says Davis.

Managing Director of Jeanius and Lynfield High student, Amanda Drabble, puts the team’s success down to recognising an opportunity and having the organisation and teamwork to meet their business goals.

“Working with a team of 13 has taught us all a huge amount about team work and leadership plus some valuable new skills,” she says.

Drabble says the team plan to continue their business next year and aim to double the number of garments they produce now that they have made a name for themselves.

The work with YES is part of Unitec’s Department of Management and Marketing Secondary Schools Strategy which started in January 2010 and headed up by Lecturer in Enterprise Education, Nick Kearns.

Kearns is the regional coordinator for YES in West Auckland and acts as Unitec representative for SELL judging events around the greater Auckland area. Both these activities are part of the Young Enterprise Trust range of programmes and Unitec has established a close working relationships with YET through sponsorship and activities in YES and SELL.

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