The Young Enterprise of the Year Scheme is a wonderful diving board for focused High School Students.  It is a means by which they learn what it is like to form a company and make their company successful.

This week  the Auckland Regional Awards for the Young Enterprise School teams was held in the Wave Room of  Auckland University of Technology – AUT.  City and West Auckland schools were represented and a very bright group of people they are.

However my bias is for the Henderson High School team.  This is the first time the school has participated and the team worked hard all year developing a vegan, probiotic almond yoghurt.  For anyone with health problems this is what you should be eating.

Olelei-Yo contacted Curds & Whey earlier in the year and it has been a pleasure to stand behind them and watch them grow. Not only do you have to form a company, write a business plan, formulate a product but one also has to face the realities of funding.  Olelei-Yo scored highly when they presented to  Dragons’ Den earlier in the year and the funding they won went towards providing hygienic production space, pottles, marketing, and lots of almonds because as the team found out the best almond yoghurt comes from the best almonds and the best almond milk has to be made fresh.   They learnt that producing a high quality almond yoghurt involved research, time, effort, good management and collaboration – but they achieved all that.

I watched them present at the Auckland Food Show in August and there is absolutely no doubt that all these students are focused, verbal and very professional.

However going back to AUT and the Young Enterprise of the Year presentations, Olelei-Yo won not only an excellence award but was a finalist in the Company of the Year Award – West Auckland.

I am happy to tell you that Olelei-Yo won the Young Enterprise of the Year 2015 Company award West Auckland – for overall excellence.  Two team members will shortly travel to Wellington to compete in the National Championships where I am sure they will excel again.  One final note – having a focused team is wonderful but a word should also be said about the parents who help, the mentoring support provided to the students and their really super teacher Yasmin who keeps everyone on their toes! (Yasmin is the lovely girl dressed in pink!)

There are superb young people out there doing great things.