Twelve Young Enterprise companies and a Norwegian company are taking part in this year's competition. The YE teams represent St Aloysius College, Junior College, De La Salle College, Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary and the Verdala International School.
"We aim to introduce and develop entrepreneurial education programmes in as many schools and organisations as possible and strive to build confidence and competence in future business leaders by developing character traits through team building experiences and practice," Karl Gouder, CEO of Young Enterprise Malta, said at the HSBC Young Enterprise National Fair held recently at City Gate.
This year's products are wide ranging, and include euro coin albums, mobile magnifiers, solid-fuel briquettes, schools journals, and many more.
The Young Enterprise teams from St Aloysius College are Eleven, Fresh and Light Fusion.
Eleven has created a "coin album" for people to collect euro coins from the several countries which have introduced the single currency. The album collection is likely to include Malta as of next year. It contains four attractive sheets of hard cardboard where each sheet has space for the set of coins of two countries. Each sheet has holders for the 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, €1 and €2 of their respective countries. A hard outer cover binds the album, ensuring durability and resistance and inside the album one can also find a separate sheet showing the whole set of coins for each country.
Want to control humidity in your home? Fresh have found a solution to this problem by introducing what is called a "Hydrasorb", a low-cost, reusable, mini dehumidifier which helps reduce humidity accumulation in small compact spaces such as wardrobes and book shelves. It works without electricity, by using silica gel beads which turn from orange to green when saturated with water. This product may be re-used by simply heating the beads in a Pyrex bowl in the microwave for a couple of seconds in order for humidity to be expelled from the beads causing them to turn orange and are able to carry out their function.
Light Fusion's candles are hand-painted by the eight members of the team. These handmade candles vary in size, and come in the shape of cubes, spheres, cylinders, pyramids, floating candles and shells. One also has a choice of wide-ranging and attractive colours and designs with flowers, butterflies, coloured spots, bows, stripes and so on. These designs vary from simple patterns to very artistic drawings.
Exclusive, Mobeye, Greenaction and Décor Active are the companies representing Junior College.
Exclusive team-members have created "Mat in the Box", an all-purpose play-mat for children that folds up into a storage box or toy box. Mounted on a base of light wood, this enables the mat to take the form of a box which is padded with foam. In order to ensure total safety, when closed, the edges of mat in the box are rounded off, preventing any accidents from sharp edges. The wooden exterior is polished, to eliminate any possibility of wood splinters.
www.exclusiveye.com.
Are you having problems reading your mobile screen? Mobeye have come up with the solution - a "Mobile Magnifier", which is portable, small and gives one the opportunity to enlarge screen text. This magnifier comes in two sizes.
www.mobeyeyoungenterprise.com
Increasing environment awareness for a greener future is the aim of the six members of Greenaction, who have created Solid-Fuel Briquettes, cubical blocks processed from newspapers which can be used for barbeques and fire places. The blocks are an inexpensive and environmental-friendly alternative to buying expensive charcoal for barbecues or logs for a fire. The Solid-Fuel Briquettes are easy to light, non-toxic, burn steadily for up to two hours and leave minimum ash.
Safeguarding one's belongings, such as the mobile phone, from any scratches is Décor Active's aim. This group of 13 offer a great economic solution with a variety of Mobile Socks. The materials they make use of are zebra skin, leather, fur and many other materials of high quality. The team also produces Mobile Charms that come in great variety and high quality, to make one's mobile the most innovative mobile phone around.
De La Salle College is represented by two companies, Visions and Bal-Jacked.
Visions have come up with a new and innovative product to enable dog owners to clean up after their dog, easily and effectively. K9 Cleaning Kit is a pouch attached firmly to the leash with Velcro and buttons. Inside the pouch are 15 wet wipes, bio-degradable scoopers and a pocket for storing personal objects such as house keys and loose change. Visions ensure a safe ad easy-to-use product which is available in a number of different patterns and textures.
Bal-Jacked have united their creativity, commercial and scientific knowledge to produce decorative lamps. These are similar to the lava lamps one finds on the market, however Bal-Jacked have taken these lamps a step further by producing them out of recycled wine bottles and fired clay bases. The lamps are also hand-painted and customisable (colour, type of bottle, design of graphic) on order. The company also produces Colour Lamps which, when switched on, illuminate the room and fill it with colour.
The companies from Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary are Coterie and The Niche. Coterie has produced original and colourful Umbrella Holders in the shape of Wellington Boots, which also add colour to the rooms.
www.coterie-online.com
The Niche is a group of 20 who have produced three innovative products. The Relaxatron, the company's main product, is a head massager manufactured entirely by the team members. It has exceptional healing properties, eliminating stress and tension by gently massaging pressure points and sensitive nerve endings on the head and neck.
The LED belt buckles are a highly effective way of advertising. They are user-friendly and have a variety of different functions. The users can input any six phrases of there choice containing up to 512 characters. The LED buckles scroll in four directions and flash the text too.
The LED Belt buckles are user-friendly and have a variety of different functions. The users can input any six phrases of there choice containing up to 512 characters. The LED buckles scrolls in four directions and flash the text too. Furthermore, these buckles have the most microchips possible which guarantees the highest quality light and much longer life span. They also come with a genuine black leather belt and also include two batteries.
The Habeas Corpus is a CD containing information about certain health problems and other health-related topics, such as eating disorders, obesity, healthy eating, smoking, contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and alternative medicine.
The Verdala International School is represented by Novus, a team that has produced a safe and reliable battery tester designed to show clearly how much energy is left in any AA battery called Re-Volt.
Ungfollo is a group of five Norwegian youngsters hailing from Ski Upper Secondary School, who produce a school journal entitled Youth in Follo. The online newspaper provides covers news from seven secondary schools in a large district called Follo.
Young Enterprise implements its vision by fostering an understanding of the business world, by encouraging young people to think creatively and globally and helping them to develop and improve their entrepreneurial skills.