News Items

The latest issue of the JADE newsletter, the bi-monthly JADE Gazette, has just been released. Within this issue you will find:

• A special theme on the work at the JADE Headquarters 
• An article on the presentation on JADE meeting Commissioner Guenther Verheugen in relation to the “Low” Level Group to Fight Administrative Burdens
• Information on the Brazilian Sister Network Brasil Junior and National Congresses held in Europe
• much more

If you would like to contribute to the next edition or comment this one, please send an email to mail@jadenet.org.

On Thursday, June 5th, the SME “Low” Level Group (LLG) to fight administrative burdens presented its package of concrete measures and political demands to substantially reduce red tape: 21 proposals from the grassroot entrepreneurial level developed in only 6 month’s time with a very tight budget.
These proposals were not only presented in a Press Conference in the morning, but were also presented to Vice-President of the Commission, Guenther Verheugen, Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry.
As the representative of youth entrepreneurship, Tanya Muller-Borges highlighted the motivational hazards of red tape: “entrepreneurs need to go a far way to actually become entrepreneurs, to rebuke risk-averseness and ignore the failure-stigma that is so deeply engrained in European culture. After overcoming these challenges, red-tape should not be the crucial factor tying start-ups and SMEs down.”
Upon initiative of Christoph Leitl, President of the SME-Union, the LLG was created at the end of 2007 together with the SME UNION of the European People’s Party, EUROCHAMBRES (the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and JADE (the European Confederation of Junior Enterprises). The aim was to support the Commission with practical ideas, to support the High Level Expert Group led by former Bavarian Minister Stoiber with entrepreneurial expertise from the grassroots, to save time and money and to obtain concrete results in 6 months, thus putting pressure on policy makers to come up with legislative action for a favorable SME environment .

To find out more about the LLG, please have a look at the report itself following this link. The press release can be downloaded here.

The SME “Low” Level Group (LLG) to fight administrative burdens composed by the SME Union, Eurochambers and JADE held a press conference today, the 5th of June.

The aim of today’s event was to present its package of concrete measures and political demands to substantially reduce red tape: 21 proposals, representing a saving potential for companies of approximately EUR 2.5 to 3.5 billion were hammered out by the LLG.

Later today the proposal will be presented also to Enterprise Commissioner Günter Verheugen, who has already expressed support to this initiative.

JADE is very proud to have contributed to the development of this work, representing not only the future Entrepreneurs, who are Junior Entrepreneurs today, but also the more than 20% of our Alumni that have created their own enterprise.

To read the press release, please click here. (.pdf-format)

Jade Hellas was a one of the key speakers in the Microsoft’s Entrepreneurship Forum. The event was held in Microsoft’s Innovation Center of Athens on the 20th of May.

The Greek Junior Enterprises were introduced along with high-level speakers and stakeholders in the field of entrepreneurship. Discussions were held on how an integrated JADE network is able to offer valuable help to the national initiatives and how the help of sponsors can be extremely useful.

Eventually, JADE Hellas seized the unique opportunity of being part of this conference and having its own exhibition area in one of the most avant-garde builildings in Greece. The Greek National Meeting was organised in the same building, as a consequence of the Confederation’s participation in the Forum.

After the first Exchange Weekend in Paris in February 2008 (also in Paris), which had Audit as the main theme, CNJE (JADE France) holds the second edition.

On the 6th and 7th of June, representatives from Austria, France, Italy, Portugal, UK and from the JADE Executive Board will gather in Paris to discuss Passover, recruitment, remote team working and strategy.

JADE thanks JADE France for the initiative, which will certainly enhance the overall knowledge of all the present Confederations and JADE.

Caux Initiatives for Business (CIB) just confirmed new names for their Conference on ‘Trust and integrity in the global economy’, which will take place in Caux, Switzerland, from 11 to 16 July.

Among the names, we can highlight Raymond W Baker, author of Capitalism’s Achilles Heel, will deliver a public Caux Lecture on 12 July at 5pm. His book is subtitled Dirty money and how to renew the free market system, described by The Financial Times as one of the best business books of the year. He will speak on ‘Financing a secure world’.

For more news on the Conference, please click here. (.pdf)

JADE supports and highly recommends the “Trust and integrity in the global economy” Conference, not only to all its Junior Entrepreneurs, but also to everyone interested in discussing the foundations and actions for a values-based society.

For Conference Registration & Information Contact:
Email: cib@caux.ch
Web: www.cauxbusiness.com

Kruschen Govender, South African representative of Junior Enterprises, will be one of the speakers in the annual South African Entrepreneurship Development Conference 2008. This year the Conference takes place from the 1st to the 4th of July in Cape Town, South Africa.

The JE concept will be introduced to South African academics, practitioners, young entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in the field of entrepreneurship. This fact not only represents a wider spread of the JE concept around the world, but also gives extra power to the South African Initiative to grow stronger.

For more information on the Conference, please click here.

Eventually, we congratulate Kruschen for the efforts he has put into fostering the JE Concept in South Africa, and also offer him and all the South African Junior Entrepreneurs all the support that JADE is able to provide.

CNJE national meeting took place in Aix-Les-Bains, a prestigious city in the Alpes. 750 Junior-Entrepreneurs and CNJE partners were gathered from the 25th to the 27th April to exchange experiences, be part of discussions, trainings and to party.

On Friday, participants could join different kinds of activities such as tennis, beach-volley and spa. The sun was shinning, so they could also take a beer in a café and visit the city. On Friday night, a cocktail gathered everybody and Junior Entrepreneurs exchanged a lot among each other, while waiting for the party. Most of people went to bed quite late, but everybody was there for the breakfast at 8am on Saturday.

During that day more than 40 different workshops were provided by CNJE partners, CNJE and also by some JE’s. Junior Entrepreneurs could learn everything necessary to manage a JE: treasury, communication, project management, team-working, international projects management.

The lunch was outside, under the blue sky in a lovely park. During the afternoon, a moment was dedicated to job/internship interviews by KPMG SA, Microsoft France, Altran and BNP Paribas.

Saturday night was holding great expectations: during the gala diner, the excellence awards were announced. Dinner was then really cheered up by Junior Entrepreneurs that were waiting for the results. Finally, the time came to present the different awards. CNJE members announced the nominated while the results were given by representatives of CNJE partners.

- Best engineering project : Junior Supélec Strategy.
- Best commercial project : Bretagne Conseil.
- Best communicating Junior-Entreprise : Sep Efrei.
- Most entrepreneurial Junior-Entreprise : Aquitaine Marketing Service.
- Most promising Junior-Entreprerise : Aquitaine Electronique Informatique.

In addition to those five awards, the final one was waited with a lot of anxiety by the six nominated Junior Entreprises for the “best Junior-Entreprise” award. The six finalists went through different steps during the year. They were first nominated as part of the 30 best Junior Entreprises after their annual audition. After that, their strategy was analysed by our partners (KPMG SA, Microsoft France, BNP Paribas and Altran) through an application file.

One of the partners went to audit them once again. The economic newspaper Les Echos held a client-satisfaction-survey of the twelve semi-finalists. Finally the six finalists had to do a presentation in front of the CNJE partners, who were responsible for choosing the winner.

This year, the Best Junior-Entreprise is Junior ISEP, a Paris based engineering Junior-Entreprise.

The award was announced at 2am and the party went on through the night.

On Sunday, tired but happy faces came to the brunch before going back home. This meeting was the biggest organised by the CNJE and can be considered the challenge of 2007/2008 team term.

For any information, please, feel free to contact: international@cnje.org

From the 8th to the 11th of June, the JADE May Meeting will take place this coming weekend in the beautiful city of Marseille, France. The second international JADE meeting in 2008 is organised by Marketing Méditerranée (www. market-med.com) and will gather two representatives of each National Confederation, the JADE Executive Board and several French Junior Entrepreneurs.

Like other international events the JADE May Meeting itself is an opportunity for networking and knowledge sharing among Junior Entrepreneurs. Also, the General Assembly, which gathers five times a year, will be held in Marseille, thus allowing JADE members and the Executive Board to discuss strategic concerns of the organization.

J.E.To.P. and JADE Italia are proud to announce the JADE Italia May Meeting 2008. It is taking place in Turin on the 16th, 17th and 18th of May and aims at promoting the collaboration amongst Italian Junior Enterprises. The event will also welcome Junior entrepreneurs from other countries

Besides JADE Italia’s General Assembly, the meeting will hold Workshops and Conferences regarding Quality Management, a recent common topic among JE’s.

Some specific activities during the event will also have students from Piedmontese Athenaeums, so that the challenging reality of JE’s can be promoted and the JE Concept spread.

For more information, please click on the following link.

The event in the European Parliament on 8 April 2008 offers the possibility to engage in a ‘Pact for Knowledge and Innovation’ where stakeholders from the public, private and academic sectors will consider how the ‘The 2020 Challenges’ can bring benefit to Europe’s economy and citizens. The need of a pact, as expressed by the organizers, is based on assumption that Europe’s future depends increasingly on its ability to both generate and manage knowledge and innovation.

JADE, as an official supporter, is present to highlight the JE Experience as one the most effective ways of relating Higher Education and innovative learning methodologies in order to stimulate an entrepreneurial mindset amongst the decision-makers of tomorrow.

A working session during the day will provide for the opportunity to discuss the establishment of a permanent Forum between the Members of the European Parliament and stakeholders from the public, private and academic sectors. Besides organizational issues the meeting will also reflect on an annual work plan to be executed in a series of breakfast-, lunch- and dinner debates.

The Declaration underpinning and substantiating ‘A pact for knowledge and innovation’ will be presented during the Cocktail Reception prior to the dinner.

For more information, please click on following link.

CNJE - Confédération Nationale des Junior-Entreprises (also called JADE France abroad) - released some key figures for 2007:

- 123 associations of which 93 are Junior Enterprises and 30 are Junior Initiatives
- 12.462 commercial proposals made by the French network
- 2.152 project leads
- 135 international projects
- 374 projects dedicated to entrepreneurs and start-ups (marketing surveys and website design)
- 8.360.828 Euro of accumulated turnover
- 167.376 potential students that can realize a project
- 10.611 students having worked for a Junior Enteprise
- 33% of all clients were SME’s
- 31% of all clients were large companies

For more information, feel free to contact international@cnje.org.

The latest issue of the JADE newsletter, the bi-monthly JADE Gazette, has just been released. Within this issue you will find:

• Insights to the JADE Spring Meeting, which gathered 130 Junior Entrepreneurs from all over Europe (28 February - 2 March, Brussels)
• The theme “Building Values for Decision-Making”
• Events attended by JADE and organized by our members
• and more

If you would like to contribute to the next edition or comment this one, please send an email to mail@jadenet.org.

Part of the JADE year are two time periods (around April and November), in which the national Congresses of JADE’s members take place. The first National Congresses will take place on the last weekend of March in Portugal and Italy. The dates of National Congresses follow. For the JADE Executive Board this is a time of traveling and interaction with Junior Entrepreneurs from all over Europe.

28-30 of March:

JADE Italia National Congress, Milan.

11-13 of April

JADE Netherlands (UniPartners Nederland) National Congress, Delft.

18-20 of April

JADE Austria National Congress, near Graz.

18-19 of April

JADE Belgium National Congress, Louvain-La-Neuve.

25-27 of April

JADE France National Congress, Aix-les-Bains.

25-27 of April

CEJE (Spain) National Congress, Segovia.
go to the official website.

22-25 of May

BDSU (Germany) National Congress, Hannover.

On the 16^th and 17^th of February, a weekend in Paris took place to brainstorm about auditing processes and quality assurance. Organised by JADE France with the courtesy of BNP Paribas, the French bank welcomed the participants in a beautiful building near the Opéra Bastille in Paris.  

The Confederations JADE Italia, JADE Portugal and JADE sent representatives to exchange on audits of Junior Enterprises to improve the quality of the network. Eric Dorlencourt, auditor from BNP Paribas, made a presentation, not only introducing the structure of auditing, but also putting emphasis on key elements, such as communication and the “separation of duties”. Crucial is that not all risks can be avoided, but that all risks need to be controlled.

JADE France shared its knowledge acquired through 15 years of experience in auditing Junior Enterprises as the French umbrella organization and the ultimate quality controller of French Junior Enterprises. Two of these added to the event with presentations about certifications. ISEP explained how they got the ISO certification, a certification aimed at the control of internal processes, while Agro Services Etude presented a certification by the French institute AFAQ AFNOR, aimed at quality assurance in the communication processes with the client. The certification “AFAQ AFNOR Service – Confiance, les Junior-Entreprises s’engagent » is a certification especially developed for French Junior Enterprises. 

For JADE, feed-back by the participants on the International Project Standard (IPS) was collected with the result that a working group will be set up to present a proposal on how to re-introduce the JADE quality label at the May Meeting. 
 

JADE thanks the JADE France and particularly its International Manager, Florence Poutriquet, for having initiated and organised this meeting, which left all participants with the inspiration and concrete recommendations on how to establish structures to increase the quality of the services provided by Junior Enterprises.