NFTE’s purpose is to lead the global movement for equitable access to entrepreneurship education and ignite the entrepreneurial mindset to empower students to own their futures.
The World Series of Innovation has three primary objectives:
1. Global Awareness of Entrepreneurship as the Driver of Innovation
2. Activation of the Entrepreneurial Mindset
3. Workforce Readiness
Each year NFTE hosts 8-10 challenges from September-December that students can enter, as well as global Innovation Day coaching sessions to support the development of their idea. Students, working in teams up to 4 members, register and submit their ideas via a free, open-to-all, online platform. As part of their submission, students must identify their target customer, explain the customer problem, their business idea and business model. Here is a video explaining how to participate: https://vimeo.com/358664416
Winning teams in each challenge category receive prizes. The winning teams can be found on the winners tab (https://innovation.nfte.com/results)
Innovation Days
- NFTE works with Innovation Partners to bring half-day ideation opportunities to their communities.
-Volunteer innovation coaches support students as they build their competition submissions, providing relevant and real-life workforce experience.
-Volunteer judges select Top 3 winners after 2 rounds of judging
To date, WSI has reached nearly 40,000 young people, with over 10,521 innovations submitted and 263 Innovation Days hosted. In the past year, WSI hosted 10 innovation challenges totaling a prize pool of over $24,000 for young entrepreneurs across the globe. WSI was also recently selected as 1 of 16 World Economic Forum’s Education 4.0 Lighthouses to represent innovators employing forward-thinking and transformative practices to reimagine the childhood learning experience. Additionally, WSI has been translated into Spanish to expand our reach in Spanish-speaking communities around the globe. Over the next 2-3 years, WSI plans to continue cultivating meaningful partnerships that can implement WSI and Innovation Days at scale, and support these efforts through further program translation.
As a student or educator, you can visit the WSI site to explore the innovation challenges - https://innovation.nfte.com/resources.
Educators and organisations looking to implement this program with their students should reach out to wsi@nfte.com to explore how they can become an Innovation Partner to bring Innovation Days to their community.
