As part of a pilot program, AgriFutures Australia and startup.business will select seven schools across Australia to deliver the AgriFutures™ startup.business Pilot Program. The exciting program will take secondary students in Year 9 and Year 10 on an immersive journey into the entrepreneurial startup scene to help solve the problems facing agriculture in Australia. The value of this program is $7,000 per school.

Startup.business will work closely with schools and teachers to deliver this program of learning and engaged activities. The program has been developed with the knowledge that students seek to be inspired and challenged by others, want to understand how to start and manage a business, and what it could mean for their future careers. The program does not require a teacher qualified in business – our program provides training to teachers to support a cohort of students on their entrepreneurial journey.

Your school must:

• Be a public secondary high school
• Offer commerce and/or agricultural studies and/or geography to Year 9 and/or Year 10 students
• Be located in a rural or regional area
• Provide a committed teacher willing to undertake professional development and deliver the course in its entirety
• Deliver all program modules in Term 2 and Term 3 in 2018
• Commit to a minimum of one class (and a minimum of 15 students total) participating in the program
• Participate and film (or livestream) the Pitch event between 17 – 21 September 2018.

The application should be completed by a teacher or nominated member of staff from the school. If you are a student, please encourage your school to apply.

We recommend you review the brief pre-application quiz below. If you answer YES to four or more questions, we encourage you to submit a formal online application. The online application will take approximately 30 minutes to complete.

Pre Application Quiz 

1. Do you meet all eligibility requirements outlined above?
2. Do you have an interest in entrepreneurship?
3. Do you have an interest in agriculture?
4. Do you want your students to engage in Problem Based Learning activities?
5. Do you have a class of students currently enrolled in agricultural studies or commerce or geography as taught within the state/territory based curriculum in which you are bound by?
6. Do you have an interest in growing the uptake of students in these subject areas?

There are currently four jobs in agriculture for every university graduate studying an agricultural-related degree (Pratley, 2017).

Barriers to entrepreneurship are reducing across most countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including in Australia. Nevertheless, research shows entrepreneurship is typically only encouraged in those families with entrepreneurial parents, meaning for most of us: entrepreneurship is either an accidental journey, or one modelled on existing family businesses.

The AgriFutures™ startup.business Pilot Program will show young people how the skills and mindset of entrepreneurs can allow them to create their own jobs. Teaching entrepreneurship is about changing the mindset of the learning process. This unique approach enables the students passions and interests with business to be incorporated into the program, highlighting these as a vehicle for change rather than a set of concepts or terms.

The critical element to learn about entrepreneurship requires students to be richly embedded in the context of opportunity, change, uncertainty and action. If they can’t see it, they can’t become it.

For PROGRAM & MEDIA enquiries contact:
Liz Jackson
Program and Education Manager at startup.business
liz@phronesis.academy