The students were placed in teams of six, with other students they had just met. In these teams, they were mentored by New Zealand businesses and tackled two business challenges that harnessed their innovative thinking to solve real-world problems.
The students only had one day to develop their business plan and come up with a 5-minute pitch for their new business idea and impressed the panel with the quality of their presentations and the depth of their thinking.
EIA participants were chosen from over 125 applicants who are all participants in The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) programme. They represented a total of 53 schools, from across 22 regions. The YES programme has over 4,700 participants, who create and run their own businesses throughout the school year as part of the programme.