A business camp for students teaches team-building skills

During this year's summer vacation, 16-year-old student Chen Xuan experienced three days as a corporate CEO and won an international Future Entrepreneur award for her efforts.

"It is the most memorable award in my life," Chen told China Business Weekly.

Chen and 98 other students from 50 high schools in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing participated in this year's Junior Achievement (JA) Youth Enterprise Camp.

The summer camp was sponsored by the US-based nonprofit organization JA and the commercial bank HSBC.

At the camp, the young participants formed management teams to establish student-run companies.

They played chief executive officers, managers in charge of research and development, salespeople and financial officers.

Along the way, they learned decision-making, product innovation and market analysis skills.

"The spirit of teamwork and leadership are essential qualities of an entrepreneur," said Gao Yang, executive director of JA China.

Justin Ting, manager of the Beijing branch of HSBC China, said HSBC joined JA China to inspire more young students to become involved in China's economic, commercial and business sectors.

Future entrepreneurs

"The camp is a great start to foster and develop more business talent for the country," Ting said.

According to JA China, the participating students arrived after already having been tested on their economic knowledge and skills. Each student won two rounds of earlier competitions before being selected to attend the camp.

"It was fortunate for me to win the previous competitions and come to Beijing. It was a huge surprise for me to be the CEO of our group," Chen said.

The JA Youth Enterprise Summer Camp was designed to simulate the model of a company, with students forming their own mock businesses.

"The companies are showcases for them to share what they have learned from JA's economic courses focusing on business, entrepreneurship, financial knowledge and the principles of personal life and work," Gao of JA China said.

Chen said she and her fellow students began with a strategic planning report and later chose products, evaluated market risks and prepared financial reports.

"As a CEO, I had to divide the works suitably to every team member, let all the members clearly know their tasks and compile their work into the final report," Chen said.

Her company was called the Bargain Group, and Chen's team spent an entire night creating the strategic plan, she said.

"The course is a wonderful example of the power of cooperation," Chen said.

Chen said she learned that product innovation requires not only creativity and an adventurous spirit, but also careful market research.

Leadership and communications skills are key strengths of an entrepreneur, she also learned

Student CEOs

Volunteers from local companies, non-government organizations (NGOs) and schools and universities taught business methods and theory to the student CEOs.

Ji Yali, a teacher from Beijing No 2 High School, said she was impressed by the camp's innovative activities and experiential style of learning about business.

"The 2009 Youth Enterprise Summer Camp helped students develop comprehensive analytical and problem-solving skills, as well as their ability to interact and work as a team," Ji said.

In addition, the approach of randomly choosing team members made participants learn how to communicate, collaborate and facilitate divisions of labor, the teacher said.

A volunteer from HSBC also praised the camp's focus on teamwork by the students.

"It is a good opportunity for them to learn about the spirit of cooperation, teamwork and leadership," the volunteer said.

Since 2005, HSBC has been working in partnership with JA China to support entrepreneur-training programs for China's middle school students.

JA China has worked with the Chinese branches of other multinational companies such as Boeing, Cargill, Dow and Coca-Cola on service projects benefiting more than 600,000 Chinese students.

(China Daily 08/31/2009 page8)