Avenir Business Contest Sees Int'l Participation for First Time

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Avenir is the French word for “future,” and that is what the Avenir Business Competition at Beijing City International School (BCIS) seeks to prepare participants for. Established in 2017 by two seniors at BCIS, the business competition was designed to encourage high school students to innovate business plans for sustainable development.

Avenir 2023 brought together 14 teams to pitch their best business ideas to a panel of working professionals, and for the first time in its young history, the contest saw the participation of teams from international schools outside of China.

Four teams from Concordian International School in Bangkok, Thailand, were sent to take part in the Junior and Senior division, and both of the Senior division teams emerged victorious after the two-day intensive contest.

In second place was MatGPT with their proposed business idea of eco-friendly mycelium packaging solutions for Thai electronic business in order to reduce plastic and Styrofoam. In first place was Sonic Sense, which sought to create a portable horn and traffic cue detector for cyclists with hearing impairments, to better protect them on the road. Jingkids International speaks to the winning team to find out what drives these young entrepreneurs.

What inspired the idea for Sonic Sense?

We got our inspiration to create a sonic signaler for deaf bikers during our volunteer experience at Setsatian School for the Deaf in Bangkok. We observed that many students relied on bicycles for short-distance transportation, such as trips to local grocery stores. Recognizing the potential safety risks, we plan to develop an assistive technology to detect horn and other traffic signals, to alert deaf cyclists of their presence, increasing the reliability of navigation.

How did it feel to win?

While we are proud of ourselves for the success, we understand that this is only the beginning, and we still have many areas to improve. We feel that the reason our project won is due to the uniqueness of our innovation, directly tackling the theme of social enterprise. Furthermore, our prototype is evidence that our product and technology is realistic and feasible.

How will you advance the project now that you’ve won?

With the prize money that we received, we will invest in our product and improve its capabilities. Specifically, we plan to upgrade our microphone to a newer version that can detect a wider range of amplitude, which will lead to greater accuracy in sound detection. After we have developed a stronger Mark IV prototype, we plan to do test runs of our product with testers who have hearing impairment to gather criticism and suggestions that can further improve our product.

The winning teams of each division received RMB 3,500 in prize money, but the real prize may be the real-life, hands-on working experience they receive during the six-week internship opportunity with event sponsor Axon Education – which brings the world’s top educational and research resources to China. Second place winners of each division won RMB 2,000 as well as a three-day internship opportunity with Software Development & Digital Consulting firm axiusSoftware. Jingkids International is also a proud sponsor of Avenir Business Contest and we're excited to see the contest reach further shores in the “avenir.”

Images: Courtesy of Avenir

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