Tamara, Enterprise Business Challenge

"Learning entrepreneurship skills empowers young women to create their own jobs and become employers rather than jobseekers"

In March 2023, 14-year-old Tamara and her teammates from school won our Enterprise Business Challenge competition in Jordan with their inspired idea of producing energy from floor tiles.

‘It was a moment of pure joy, and I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm,’ Tamara recalls. ‘I felt an immense sense of pride, not only for myself but also for my teammates. It was a validation of our collective efforts and a testament to the skills and knowledge we had developed throughout the program.’

Tamara’s team is made up entirely of young women. Their prize-winning business concept is built around the installation of kinetic floor tiles in high foot traffic areas. As people walk over them, the tiles flex with every footstep and transform the energy from this movement into electricity.

‘People were drowning with high power and electric bills and rising costs,’ Tamara explains. ‘We thought this idea would be a good investment for all Jordanian homes, stores and buildings.’

The Enterprise Business Challenge programme, delivered through our partner INJAZ, gives school students across Jordan the chance to develop entrepreneurship skills through coaching, mentoring and an online business simulation game. Teams of teenagers then develop and pitch their own business ideas in a national competition.

Tamara stresses that she particularly valued the programme’s hands-on approach to learning and its emphasis on practical application:

‘Exploring different approaches and analysing the outcomes helped me develop a deeper understanding of how to navigate real-world business challenges… Being able to see the direct impact of our decisions and actions in the game helped solidify our understanding of key business concepts.’

As winners, Tamara’s team received over £800 in seed funding to test their idea in real life.

In 2022/23, over 13,000 students from 250 schools took part in Enterprise Business Challenge. Over 80% of these aspiring entrepreneurs were young women.