Pitch the idea

Aims of the tool

This workshop teaches: entrepreneurship, social & cultural interaction, mathematical thinking, pitching ideas and working together.

Description of the tool

Pitch the idea
Aims of the workshop
This workshop teaches: entrepreneurship, social & cultural interaction, mathematical thinking, pitching ideas and working together.
It also gives the participants a more practical view of the topic because rather than just learning and discussing about it, they now also have to think about a practical application of the theory.
This workshop develops the ability to turn ideas into action. We create new ideas and innovations.
Sometimes we have to take risks. When we speak to people in the streets we can meet rude people and people in a hurry. We have to take initiative and we learn that this is beneficial when you want to be an entrepreneur or when you apply for a job.

We learn to present the ideas which we developed and to show others in a clear, open and interesting presentation what we plan to do.
We learn the basic skills of making a presentation just by doing it.
We get an idea what the Golden Circle model is and can use it in our future lives.

Preparation
Opening presentation
Example questionnaire questions
3 jury members
Projector/board for presentations
Reward for winning team
Description of the workshop

This game will take whole afternoon:
15 minutes - explanation of this activity
60-90 minutes - survey in streets
30-45 minutes - analysis, preparation of presentations
30 - 60 minutes - giving presentations (depends on number of groups presenting)

Begin with a short introduction of entrepreneurship and explain the golden circle model by Simon Sinek (emphasizing the 'why' of your organization).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=88&v=XNqKZybIdv4&feature=emb_title
https://www.strategischmarketingplan.com/marketingmodellen/golden-circle-simon-sinek/
Divide the participants into groups of around 4-5. Follow up with an assignment for the participants to prepare a questionnaire about the needs regarding a certain topic (in our case it was environment) for the local population.
Give each group one map and 3-5 questionnaires with minimum 10 questions. The groups are supposed to go to the city and talk to people about their needs. What services do they lack in the city? What products can’t they find? What problems do they have? The map (in annexes: our customer - our boss maps) and the questionnaire (in annexes: our customer- our boss questionnaire) are helpful - participants should ask different target groups (seniors, students etc.) and ask about different areas (culture, education...).
Once they collect at least 10 answers from people, they have time to prepare a solution(s) to these problems in forms of business opportunity. They should come up with a product or service for this city. For example: 8 out of 10 answers are about lack of public transportation in the city. Participants might come up with the idea of a new sustainable line of bus or tram.
After they come up with solutions and their new business ideas, they should create a presentation (on flipchart paper) about what they found out, what their solution is and present the business (how will it make money solving this particular problem?). You can involve local mayor/politician and local businesses who might want to show up for the presentation. The participants will give them some interesting ideas.
Then give the groups some time to think of an actual business idea, and let them work on it for a bit. Make them pay attention to not only the idea, but also the location, the finances and other related processes.
Once they have worked on their idea for a little bit, announce that they will also have to pitch it later. (Prepare three professionals from the field to judge the pitches) In our case the judges were a former entrepreneur, a climate scientist and a professor of marketing and consumer behaviour.
Have the participants pitch their ideas to the judges. The judges can ask critical questions after every pitch. After all the pitches every participant also gets one token to vote with (coins, paper). They can vote by putting their token in a bag labelled with the group number they want to vote for.
When the voting is done, the judges will give their opinion on all the ideas and score them. These scores get combined 50/50 with the scores from the participants votes. The winner will earn a small reward