We know, whining is our national sport. As if nothing is right in this country. Many times we are right. But are we really being fair to ourselves? Or do we often overdo it and indulge in a perpetual spiral of self-deprecation, which distorts and ultimately silences the many but fragmented cradles of progress that will animate us and take us as a society and as a country a little further?
Look what happened last Wednesday afternoon: at 4 o’clock Greek time the well-known businessman and investor, Ralph de la Vega, would announce which team from the USA, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Arab countries would conquer the Junior Achievement Global Student Entrepreneurship Award; The Greek student virtual business “Isometricks” from the Experimental High School of the University of Macedonia, represented the European continent, after last July it had won the corresponding European award with wizzle, an exciting game of symmetries with hidden mathematics, which has a beneficial effect on the functioning of brain. It was a bit like the Oscars: the six winning teams from every corner of the globe waited with great anxiety for the announcement of the global winner. And when the big moment arrived, the five students of the 2nd Lyceum, who make up the Isometricks racing team, Korina Malasidis, Ioannis Terpsiadis, Fai Katsanou, Marina Giakoumoglou and Nikolas Sivvas, burst into celebrations and tears of happiness. They had succeeded in more than that: their idea, which has been a ready-made commercial product for almost a year and has attracted the interest of the World Health Organization, was conquering the top of the world.
It is the first time in the nearly twenty-year history of Junior Achievement Greece, that a Greek student “startup” wins the global award, which is accompanied by a cash prize worth 15,000 dollars. To understand the scale of the success, it is worth noting that more than 1 million students from 120 countries participated in the “JA Company Program” only during the 2022-2023 school year. It is estimated that Junior Achievement introduces 15 million students to entrepreneurship each year.
The professors in charge of the project, Nikos Terpsiadis, Anna Macioris and Kyriaki Vasilou, could not hide their great emotion, who were quick to thank everyone who supported them on this long journey: Giorgos Baloglou, pr. professor of the State University of New York, the volunteer advisors Ioannis Papadopoulos, general manager of IKEA Thessaloniki and Georgios Varelas, business navigator of IKEA Thessaloniki, the inspirational mentor Alexis Papachelas, director of “Kathimerini”, “for his penetrating perspective and inspiration that he gave to our students and to us”, but also to Peter Economides, brand strategist, “for the magic, the fairy tale and the dream”, and, of course, the “amazing people” of JA Greece “for the support, efficiency and positive energy”. Now the date is set for next Friday, April 26 at the “Hellenic World” Cultural Center, where the Greek “final” of this school year will be held with the presence, in fact, of the great global triumphants. The bar is already too high.
Editor: Margarita Pournara
