Junior Achievement Europe Company of the Year
The project “Treberei” from Austria is European Company of the Year
- “Treberei” from Austria was honoured as “Junior Achievement Europe Company of the Year” at Gen-E 2024 in Catania, Italy
- The UniCredit Foundation's “Re-Power Your Future” Award goes to Team Devecol from Slovakia
At Europe's largest festival for entrepreneurial spirit, which took place from 2 to 4 July 2024 in Catania, Italy, the winning project of the Austrian Junior Company competition “Treberei”, which is dedicated to the production and distribution of noodles made from a waste product of beer production, was awarded the main prize as “European Company of the Year”. The team produces certified organic grains noodles from spent grains, a residual product of the brewing process. In addition to the innovative product idea, the company also has a sophisticated marketing concept with an online shop, recipes from award-winning chefs and a wide range of products.
Robert Zadrazil, Country Manager Austria, UniCredit: “The innovative winning project of the Austrian Junior Company competition ‘Treberei’ is an outstanding example of the talent of young people and we warmly congratulate them on being named European Company of the Year by Junior Achievement at Gen-E 2024. In Austria, we have further expanded our educational programme through our cooperation with Junior Achievement Austria. With the ‘Re-Power Your Future’ programme, we specifically encourage young people from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds at disadvantaged schools to pursue higher education and prepare them in the best possible way for starting a career. This is done through the Junior Company programme as well as through lectures, workshops on application training and coaching. Volunteers from UniCredit Bank Austria support ‘Re-Power Your Future’ as mentors, coaches and judges for the 'Junior Companies'.”
Re-Power Your Future Award from the UniCredit Foundation
The UniCredit Foundation's “Re-Power Your Future” Award recognises the best Junior Achievement business that either developed solutions aspiring to support social mobility of the next generation of youth or to elevate the communities they target through social engagement.
Twelve students from a technical secondary school in Bratislava, Slovakia, have been honoured with the UniCredit Foundation's “Re-Power Your Future Award” for their impressive business project. Their junior company Devecol has successfully developed a smart and interactive application that mobilises communities to collect waste from nature. This innovative solution fosters collaboration among young people, civil society and institutions, showcasing the students' exceptional ability to engage multi-stakeholders around a shared mission.
The Award is part of a three-year "Re-power your future" initiative by JA Europe and UniCredit Foundation, where participating youth are involved in a real entrepreneurial experience and gain the necessary skills, competences and knowledge to be successfully employed in the future and to give a pass for further opportunities. The initiative involves a strong commitment to the community with UniCredit bank representatives: skills-based volunteering, mentoring, role modeling, support for organizing local events, and connections with other similar initiatives.
Silvia Cappellini, General Manager, UniCredit Foundation, said: “We are happy and honored to participate in the Gen-E festival as european partner. In July 2023, the UniCredit Foundation joined forces with Junior Achievement Europe to launch ‘Re-power Your Future‘, a concrete initiative aimed at combating early school leaving, involving 10 countries within the UniCredit perimeter in a three-year program. These days we celebrate the results of European students and their innovative entrepreneurial ideas. UniCredit Foundation is proud to announce the winners of the Re-power Your Future Award, for their ability to engage the entire community around a cause for the common good. Seeing these projects become reality represents for us a great injection of confidence in the future.”
Salvatore Nigro, CEO JA Europe added: “There is a clear connection between providing more entrepreneurial learning experiences and combating school drop-out. JA programmes have the ability to stimulate self-esteem of young people, instill the desire to actively take control of their lives, learning how to develop the skills to do so in practice. How? By inspiring all youth with the entrepreneurial example of others, and by teaching them a broad range of relevant soft and hard skills to succeed in the global economy.”
The first year of the “Re-Power Your Future” initiative has seen a range of inspiring activities that have helped to reduce early school leaving through measurable results and increase motivation, engagement and provision in schools where the risk of early school leaving is highest. The collaboration between the UniCredit Foundation and Junior Achievement Europe has been instrumental in improving outcomes, preventing early school leaving and inspiring young people to pursue their dream careers.
About the UniCredit Foundation
This Third Sector Body (TSB) is the corporate foundation of UniCredit Group whose purpose is to unlock the potential of Europe’s next generation. Its mission is to empower young people across Europe by creating equal opportunities in education and to support them in making their way in life and the professional world. The Foundation's initiatives aim at combating school drop-out, enhancing employability, encouraging university attainment and promoting study and research. The Foundation is committed to supporting communities in all countries where UniCredit Group operates.
About Junior Achievement Europe
Junior Achievement Europe is the largest and leading organisation in Europe dedicated to inspiring and preparing young people for a successful future. For over 100 years, Junior Achievement Worldwide has provided hands-on learning in the areas of entrepreneurship, career preparation and financial health. Last school year, the Junior Achievement Europe network delivered 6 million learning opportunities for youth in more than 40 countries online, in-person and in blended formats with the support of nearly 110,000 teachers and nearly 90,000 volunteers from the business community. In 2024, Junior Achievement Worldwide was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - for the third time in three years.
About Gen-E
Gen-E is Europe’s largest Entrepreneurship event, a celebration of entrepreneurship and the achievements of European youth. Thousands of European students, from 15 years old onwards, showcase their cutting–edge business ideas online and on-site. The Gen-E Festival also combines two annual European entrepreneurship contests for the winners of JA Company and the JA Start-Up Programme from over 40 countries. Nearly 400,000 young Europeans created their JA Company or Start Up in the 2023/24 school year, and the best teams from each country competed in the Gen-E European final competition.
Enquiries:
UniCredit Bank Austria Media Relations:
Matthias Raftl, Phone: +43 (0) 5 05 05-52809;
E-mail: matthias.raftl@unicreditgroup.at
JA Europe:
Minna Melleri, Chief of Advocacy and Growth, Tel. +47 48244861
E-mail: minna@jaeurope.org