It may be no ‘Shark Tank‘, the reality tv programme where contestants pitch their entrepreneurship ideas to investors, but the partnership between Flow and the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation (BEF) is the closest to ensure that the young minds of Barbados are being cultivated with enterprising and entrepreneurship skills. These are skills, which are not only vital to the development of the child, but imperative to the economic growth of the country as a whole.

According to Managing Director Niall Sheehy, “Children are born imaginative, energetic, and willing to take risks, but they can also lose this entrepreneurial spirit over time. Such programmes like the BEF/FLOW $20 Challenge make up for gaps left by an educational system that ill prepares students for a tech-centric, rapidly shifting job market.”

“For us, this fits squarely into our mandate and our mission – which is to create opportunities that builds up our communities and our stakeholders. The starting point is with those who are most impressionable, our youth. We know they will make mistakes along the way, but we also know as a business fact that failure is only failure if you don’t learn from it. That is why we have partnered once again with the BEF to create opportunities, in which the risks are minimal, but the possibilities are endless,” he added.

Now in its fifth year, over 2000 students across Barbados have successfully demonstrated that a profitable business could be started with just $20. This year the $20 Challenge officially starts on October 12, 2015 and is expected to attract more than 500 fourth and fifth form students from over 20 schools island-wide.

Marketing Manager of Scotiabank, Amanda Lynch Foster, said “We have to shape an entrepreneurial mind-set of our young people from now. The BEF Flow $20 Challenge challenges your people to think of themselves as potential job creators and not just job seekers. And that’s really important for our country and our economy.”