«mind REsetters of the year 2022 – 2023»
Final Competition and Award Ceremony
The final competition and award ceremony of the Annual Competition “mind REsetters of the Year 2022 – 2023” was completed with great success! The event was organized for the 2nd consecutive year by Junior Achievement Cyprus on December 16, 15:00 – 19:00, at POED premises.
The event was open to all those interested in discovering the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity of the promising new generation. The final competition was the culmination of the efforts of more than 300 students, aged 10-14, who have created green innovative products and services.
The ten finalist student companies, out of the 60 created under the “mind REset” programme, presented their innovative business ideas publicly and in front of a specialized jury. The program involved 60 schools from all over Cyprus (37 Primary & 23 High Schools), 134 classes (93 in Primary & 41 in High Schools) with a total number of students of 2524 (1793 in Primary & 731 in High Schools) with the support of more than 130 teachers.
The student companies were created within the framework of the “mind REset” programme, a fun and interactive program that offers 5 lessons to students in the 5th and 6th grades of primary school and 1st and 2nd grades of lower high school. Junior Achievement Cyprus in collaboration with Lidl Cyprus implements the programme free of charge in public and private schools all over Cyprus. The programme is approved by the Ministry of Education, Sports, and Youth.
The students have been asked to identify the consequences of plastic in our lives and propose practical and sustainable solutions that will contribute to the protection and preservation of the environment. At the same time, they had the opportunity to enter the very interesting field of entrepreneurship and promote their own products and services. The students went from the idea stage to planning and implementation.
For the final selection of the teams, the judges assessed the quality of their business idea presentation, the quality of their exhibits and booth, and the quality of their stage presence and responses.
The Mind Resetters of the year 2022-23, who gain from an educational business experience in Greece, are:
The company “incrEDIBLE alternatives” from Livadia Elementary School K.B. The company manufactures innovative edible biodegradable gelatin wraps that are environmentally friendly, the wrapBITES. The members of the team are: Niki Eleftheriou, Raphael Christodoulou, Veronika Sivolap, Marios Petros Romanos. The team was supported by the responsible teacher Pinelopi Katsamba.
The company: P.A.S.S. on the Plastic from Olympian High School. The idea is to create software and integrate it into a “tower”, which will be placed in central points of supermarkets. The tower will be able, through a specific process, to fill refillable containers of three sizes (250 ml, 500 ml, 1000 ml) with the material of specific products, which the customer will buy from the supermarkets only once. Also, the tower will be able to recognize the unique “identity – customer card” and automatically transfer the cost and points of purchases to the central cash registers of the supermarket, where the customer will end up paying for all his purchases in the end. The members of the group were: Stavros Christodoulou, Panagiotis Vienas, Sokratis Ladopoulos, Andreas Tofaris. The team was supported by the teachers Filia Georgiou, George Krekos and Konstantinos Hatzipapas.
All students will be given the opportunity to participate in recreational experiences from the organization’s strategic partner Lidl Cyprus.
Many congratulations to the rest of the finalist teams who emerged from among 60 teams from all over Cyprus! CASETIVITY (Mitsi School, Lemythou), Good4Pets (Stavros High School), Green Defenders Plastic Art (Kokkinochoria Panos Ioannou High School), Re cycle (Agios Georgios Larnaca High School), A.K.L. cool BAG (Tersefanou Primary School), BATH 2 WASH (Agios Athanasios B’ Primary School), Biodegradable Plastic Straws (The Junior School), and Plastic Busters (Ypsonas 3rd Primary School).
The members of the final judging committee were: Natasa Pilides, Minister of Energy, Trade and Industry, Marios Vrahimis General Manager of Green-Dot Cyprus, Andreas Papadopoulos, Chairman of the Board of Directors of JA Cyprus, Spyros Kondylis, General Manager of Lidl Cyprus and Dr. Natasa Christou, Innovation and Sustainable Development Consultant.
The will, the ideas, and the zeal with which all the students worked from all 60 teams all over Cyprus were admirable, sending a hopeful message for the future in entrepreneurship but also in environmental awareness.
The program was implemented with the Strategic Partnership of Lidl Cyprus and with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Youth as an Institutional Partner.
For more information, visit our website www.jacyprus.org or contact Kyriacos Masonou, by phone 99194313 or email kyriacos.masonou@jacyprus.org
