SIFE (Student In Free Enterprise) is the world’s largest non-profit student organization aiming to empower students, universities and businesses to work together and deliver projects to create economic opportunities for others. SIFE is dedicated to nurturing the entrepreneurial skills of university students in a way that is both effective for them in developing their future careers and meaningful to the community.
SIFE Imperial targets “troubled area” in London with focuses on young people and lone parents. Currently there are three projects on going which have demonstrated long lasting impacts on the participants with measurable results.
More than 20 lone parents participated in the “Jewellery” project and had the chance to experience the possibility of being an entrepreneur. Business knowledge and jewellery making skill were taught throughout a series of workshops and the parents sold the jewelleries that they have made in Camden market to experience the true market dynamics.
In our other 2 projects, two very different groups of young people were inspired to become the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Young people who were at risk of being expelled were given a series of workshops on personal success skills, financial literacy and entrepreneurship in the “Insight into Business” Project. These young people were then encouraged to develop their own innovative business idea and present their business idea to a panel of judges similar to the BBC’s programme “Dragon’s Den”. Some of the participants were eager to start their own business with the help from our students.
In the “Science Entrepreneurship” project, some of the brightest young people with strong interest in science and innovations were shown the relationship between science and entrepreneurship, and how it has a significant effect on the economy as highlighted by the government. Similar to the “Insight into business project, the students pitched their own inventions to a panel of judges at the end of the project and were inspired to pursue science in university to become an entrepreneur in future.
