HIGH school students from across Guyana will soon be given the opportunity to pitch their business ideas as the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Guyana Alumni (YLAI Guyana) gears up to host the country’s inaugural “Youth Innovation Camp”, in collaboration with the U.S Embassy here.

The three-day entrepreneurial boot camp billed for December 18-20 is designed to foster an entrepreneurial environment amongst youths in Guyana. YLAI empowers entrepreneurs and innovative civil society leaders to strengthen their capacity to launch and advance their entrepreneurial ideas and, effectively contribute to social and economic development in their communities.

In an interview with Guyana Chronicle on Saturday, Founder and CEO of Community Health Care, Abbigale Loncke, who was recognised by former US President Barack Obama for her outstanding work as a young entrepreneur, explained that in groups of three, high school students between the ages of 15 and 17 who are interested in becoming social or business entrepreneurs, now have the opportunity to apply to be a part of the “Youth Innovation Camp.”
According to Loncke, though there is no limit on the amount of applications that can be submitted by schools across the 10 Administrative Regions, the teams will be short-listed after they have pitched their business ideas. The Alumni will be selecting one team from each region.

“Our goal is to choose one team, which will be made up of three persons, from each region. So from all 10 regions we are looking to get one team and to bring them down to Georgetown to have the camp,” the YLAI 2016 participant explained. The deadline for submission is November 15, 2017.
After the YLAI Guyana Alumni would have selected its 10 groups, the parents of the 30 potential entrepreneurs would be contacted for permission to be granted for them to travel to the capital city – Georgetown – for the boot camp in December. It was noted that transportation, accommodation, and food would be provided for all team members free of cost.

Once in Georgetown, Loncke said the potential entrepreneurs would be molded.
“We will help them to just redefine their pitch, look at how their business is going to be structured, look at the future of their business…and at the end of it we will have a pitching competition, where they will be pitching live to judges, with the hopes of winning some seed money to take to their business from idea to actually a functioning organisation,” she explained.
Loncke said because businesses will be birthed out of the camp, it is important to have the teams in groups of three.

“We need a leader of the group which is the CEO, that is the person who is going to spearhead the company, we need the operations officer, that person is going to be on the ground looking at the operations of the company and then we also need a financial officer who can really monitor the financial aspect of the company on a day to day basis,” she said.
Aside from the pitch competition, Loncke noted that during the boot camp, the participants will engage in social activities while being taught how to cope with life as an entrepreneur, and the need to have a support base with like-minded individuals.
“We will have business trainers…individuals from the business community who are going to be doing one on one mentoring session and breakout sessions with the students,” the YLAI Guyana 2016 participant added.

Co-Founder of Intellect Storm, Triston Thompson, who is also an YLAI Guyana 2016 participant, noted that the “Youth Innovation Camp” is being funded by the U.S Embassy, but said that the private sector is free to lend support to the initiative. The Education and Business Ministries are reportedly on board.

In addition to Loncke and Thompson, the other members of the YLAI Guyana Alumni include, Dason Anthony – CEO 592 Dresses, Shaunda Yarde – CEO Golden Crunch Coconut Biscuits and Judason Bess – CEO Farmacy.