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Youth Enterprise Awards

HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards (YEA) is a Business Plan Contest organised by the British Council in partnership with HSBC. It aims to recognise young entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka and support them to start their own businesses. The contest is open to Sri Lankan postgraduates, undergraduates and students aged 16 to 26 years representing universities, private higher education institutions, technical and vocational institutions and professional training bodies in Sri Lanka. The industry sectors are not specified this year, therefore the contestants can apply for any kind of business idea.

AWARDS
The winning individual/ team will receive Rs.500,000 (half a million rupees), first runner-up individual/ team will receive Rs.200,000 and second runner-up individual/ team will receive Rs.100,000 as cash prizes.

BACKGROUND
British Council has pioneered number of initiatives to promote graduate entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka. By working closely with the Ministry of Higher Education, University Grants Commission, Vice Chancellors and Lecturers in Sri Lanka and UK’s entrepreneurial universities the British Council is helping to develop policies and programmes to develop entrepreneurship education within universities. British Council currently funds number of academic partnerships between universities in Sri Lanka and the UK all of which are aimed at developing new training modules and teaching methodologies on entrepreneurship. IDEATORS – Next Generation Entrepreneurs is a popular reality TV enterprise competition organised by the British Council that has created mass-scale awareness about the importance of entrepreneurship education. Graduate Enterprise Challenge organised in partnership with SLASSCOM is another contest which aims at developing ICT Entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka. British Council is honoured to partner with HSBC to organise Youth Enterprise Awards which will run as an annual programme.

COMPETITION FORMAT

STAGE PROCESS TIMELINES
Stage 1 Call for business ideas
Applicants can submit their business ideas using the online application form. Alternatively applicants can submit their applications via e-mail or by post to HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards, British Council 49 Alfred House Gardens, Colombo 3. Deadline: Friday 15 June
Stage 2 Application screening and interviewing
Selected applicants will be interviewed by an eminent panel of entrepreneurs and industry experts (a presentation and a Business Plan are required). July 2012
Stage 3

Awards ceremony
A winner (individual/team), first runner up (individual/team) and second runner-up (individual/team) will be recognised.

The winning individual/team will receive Rs.500,000 (half a million rupees), first runner-up team (individual/team) will receive Rs.200,000 and second runner-up team (individual/team) will receive Rs.100,000 as cash prizes to start their business ventures.

August 2012
Stage 4 Mentoring
The winners will be mentored for a period of six months by professionals September 2012
to
January 2013

Please read the guidelines for applicants for eligibility criteria.

GUIDELINES FOR APPLICANTS

HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards is open to, full and/or part-time postgraduate, undergraduate or diploma students enrolled in a university, private higher education institution, technical and vocational institution and members of a professional training body in Sri Lanka in any field of study during the year 2011-2012
All applicants should be between 16 to 26 years of age as at May 2012
Applications may be submitted by individuals or teams of eligible (above) candidates from the same institute or different institutions. If you are submitting as a team, there can only be maximum 5 members per team. You may submit more than one business idea.
The ideas, concepts, written documents, presentations and all aspects of the submissions to the HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards must be the original work of the individual or the team members and must not be under any agreement or restrictions which prohibit or limit the disclosure and/or usage of the ideas
HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards is open for business ventures created, managed and owned by the eligible candidates (above) only. All team members must have played a major role in conceiving the business idea, have key management roles and own significant equity in the business venture
HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards is for new, independent business ventures in the seed, start-up or early growth stages
Generally excluded business ventures are buy-outs, expansions (of existing companies), real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area and spin-outs from existing corporations. Licensing technologies from universities or research labs is not excluded and is encouraged, assuming they have not been commercialised previously
Business ventures that have received prior outside investment from venture capital firms, private investors and/or industry sources are NOT eligible to apply
Both student and other team members may have worked on an idea or new technology in previous years or in the case of the student team members even prior to entering their academic institution
All business ventures MUST be “for profit” entities seeking funding.
Applicants must submit the completed application form via e-mail to niroshi.siriwansa@britishcouncil.org or by post HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards, British Council 49 Alfred House Gardens, Colombo 3 on or before Friday 15 June 2012.
Decisions taken by the HSBC Youth Enterprise Awards judges and the organising committee will be final in all cases

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Niroshi Siriwansa
Manager International Higher Education
British Council
49 Alfred House Gardens
Colombo 3

T 011 4521521
M 077 2521575
E niroshi.siriwansa@britishcouncil.org

Dilini Fernando
Corporate Sustainability Manager
HSBC
24 Sir Baron Jayathilake Mawatha
Colombo 1

T 0112 446591
E dilinifernando@hsbc.com.lk

DCSIMG

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