Child-friendly injection needle wins Junior Startup Challenge 2019

The Junior Startup Challenge is an entrepreneurship competition that offers entrepreneurial high school students the opportunity to develop their ideas and business concepts further. Twenty groups of more than 80 students from various secondary schools in the region attended four workshops after the kick-off in February. They submitted their business plans, and the jury selected five groups for the second round; a presentation day on June 27. The three finalists were announced during that day: Shreval, HappySyr and ADAPTR. 

The jury assessed the participants during three rounds. It consisted of Vera de Ruiter (manager of Saxion Centre of Entrepreneurship), Olaf Leppink (manager School of Business, Building & Technology), Emiel Pegge (Founder at Seezers BV), Daniël Spijker (Director DS Internet Trading and Erik Wierstra (Lecturer entrepreneurship). Jury chairman Vera de Ruiter about the final: “What a great final! It was close until the very last moments, and it was not easy for the jury. HappySyr was declared the deserved winner in the end. They presented something unique and original with their child-friendly casings for injection needles. They managed to convert their idea into a prototype with a business model in a short time. But there was more; the level of all finalists was so high this year that we decided to do something exceptional in this fourth edition. All three finalist teams have won a few hours of exclusive coaching from Novel-T, worth €300 per voucher. We hope that all the students will seriously continue developing their business plans with this.

The Junior Startup Challenge is an initiative of the Saxion Centre for Entrepreneurship, the Carmel Foundation and the Municipality of Enschede. They want to stimulate entrepreneurial behaviour in high school students with this. More and more students are interested in a career as an entrepreneur.