What SIFE Does : Entrepreneurship

2# Entrepreneurship

Australia Curtin University of Technology Curtin SIFE developed "Entrepreneur's Challenge," a competition to design innovative products and services to fill a market need. Participants worked in teams to go from idea generation and business planning to final submissions and presentations. Approximately 120 people competed and 30 businesses were launched as a result.

China Shanghai International Studies University SIFE SISU spent more than 2,000 hours implementing "Rainbow over the Fields" in the rural villages of Yancheng, Yixing and Chengde. The project assisted impoverished Chinese farmers by providing direct access to education and basic resources. Farmers were provided seeds and other supplies, and they learned supply and demand, efficient use of resources, new agriculture methods, and how to search the Internet for information. One farmer, Zhang Danong, said, "Through your program, I really broadened my view... to earn a brighter future for my family!"

Russia Russian State Pedagogical University - St. Petersburg In an effort to increase small business start-ups in Russia, this SIFE Team organized ten workshops to teach basic knowledge of creating and running a successful company. Seminars were led by students already experience in business, and the nearly 70 university participants enjoyed the innovative peer-to-peer format. Thinking that "if they can do it, I can do it," 11 students decided to start their own businesses and received personal assistance from the SIFE Team.

Morocco Institut des Hautes Etudes de Management - Casablanca (HEM) HEM SIFE brought a lucrative industry to a struggling community. Through research, Morocco SIFE discovered that the village of Oulad Bouziri had an abundance of snails, but the community's efforts to market escargot were unstructured and it was one of the country's poorest regions. The team created a snail farming cooperative in the village. They formed a business plan, secured a facility to house the snails, introduced snail breeding and developed a website to increase national and international orders.