The winners of the 2018 First Citizens sponsored Dare to Dream Business Idea Competition – From left: Treviann Holder, Shakaila Blackman, Kameisha Jackman and Asharia Ishmael.
Young students prove tutor right
Tourism and Hospitality Instructor at The Hospitality Institute, Makeda Hart believed that the 2016-2017/2017-2018 two year Associate Degree in Tourism and Travel students had the right mix of skills, talent and determination to enter the First Citizens sponsored Dare to Dream Business Idea Competition and she was proved right with all three groups placing in the top five. One group got first place while another group took home third place.
Speaking with The Barbados Advocate yesterday about the ‘Dare to Dream’ Competition, which is geared towards encouraging persons under the age of 21 to develop an interest in and love for entrepreneurship, she said that the competition is approximately three years old, but they entered for the first time this year because she felt that this year’s crop of students were ready to take up the mantle.
“To be extremely honest last year I did not get the response that I needed from the group and then I felt that the interest was not there – and then for me – I also saw that they were not ready. Now coming into this year – this would be considered the tourism and travel group – the students I felt were a lot more stronger, a lot more committed, a lot more dedicated.”
She said that the students entered concepts that they had discussed in their Entrepreneurship class.
“I felt that they were a lot more ready to enter the competition because when we looked at the fact that the competition was right on the cusp of us running our entrepreneurship programme at the institute – which is done in the final semester, just before they graduate – we felt that it would tie in nicely to just take concepts coming out of the classroom and take it into competition. So that was one of the reasons why I knew that they were very competent in the area.”
Hart added that she then came to the students and told them that they were going to enter the competition and they had “no choice” in the matter. The initial plan was to enter five groups, but they were limited by the age requirements which “basically took out a lot of the contenders”
Therefore, even though there were many good business ideas that came out of the class, at the end of the day, it was limited to those who met the age requirement along with those whose business ideas she felt had a fighting chance to succeed in the competition.