NFTE’s purpose is to lead the global movement for equitable access to entrepreneurship education and ignite the entrepreneurial mindset to empower students to own their futures.
The World Series of Innovation has three primary objectives:
1. Global Awareness of Entrepreneurship as the Driver of Innovation
2. Activation of the Entrepreneurial Mindset
3. Workforce Readiness
Each year NFTE hosts several challenges from September-December that students can enter, as well as global Innovation Day coaching sessions to support the development of their idea. Students, working in teams up to 4 members, register and submit their ideas via a free, open-to-all, online platform. As part of their submission, students must identify their target customer, explain the customer problem, their business idea and business model. Here is a video explaining how to participate: https://vimeo.com/358664416
Winning teams in each challenge category receive prizes. The winning teams can be found on the winners tab (https://innovation.nfte.com/results)
Innovation Days
- NFTE works with Innovation Partners to bring half-day ideation opportunities to their communities.
-Volunteer innovation coaches support students as they build their competition submissions, providing relevant and real-life workforce experience.
-Volunteer judges select Top 3 winners after 2 rounds of judging
To date, WSI has reached over 45,500 young people, with over 12,335 innovations submitted and 302 Innovation Days hosted. With the support of HundrED's Global Collection and selection into WEF Education 4.0 Lighthouses, WSI has seen 43% overall participant increase in just the previous year and 15 global Innovation Day events, underscoring the growth of the program. WSI has also experienced growth in global volunteerism, with over 1000 volunteer coaches and judges in the previous program cycle. We hope to continue to expand our program with continued expansion of our translation efforts (WSI is now offered in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Simplified Chinese), with potential funding support for programs in Hindi and French.
As a student or educator, you can visit the WSI site to explore the innovation challenges - https://innovation.nfte.com/challenges.
Educators and organisations looking to implement this program with their students should reach out to wsi@nfte.com to explore how they can become an Innovation Partner to bring Innovation Days to their community.