First year students at St Aloysius Secondary School joined their Carrigtwohill (Co. Cork) neighbours at GE Healthcare to undertake the Junior Achievement (JA) Innovation Challenge.
The JA Innovation Challenge involved GE Healthcare volunteers who presented the young students with a range of specific business challenges in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines. The GE volunteers then worked with the students to generate challenge solutions and innovations. Working in groups the students learned to combine creative thinking and teamwork to develop and refine innovations and provide solutions to meet the challenge.
Food waste reduction, smart houses, innovative medicine labelling and smart packaging were among the innovations developed by the students who enjoyed their first practical experience of idea generation and entrepreneurship. The JA Challenge effectively steers young people towards business ideas of a more scientific and technological/ engineering nature and the students at St Aloysius Secondary School rose to the challenge. St Aloysius business teacher Catherine Begley said, “the innovation camp for first year business students is the ideal way to open up their imaginations to the creative process and to new ways of problem solving in the spirit of co-operative learning”. The students showed real enthusiasm for the challenge and confidently presented their projects to their peers, teachers and volunteers.
GE staff around Ireland will now go on to deliver a further 3 Junior Achievement Innovation Challenge Camps in Dublin and Limerick. In all GE will deliver 39 Junior Achievement Innovation camps in schools globally this year.