Open your mind and think beyond the patterns. It is the only way for you to come to new ideas and find new solutions. If you cannot establish large corporations, then you should establish small and medium enterprises, but with new ideas and innovations. That was the message of the President of the Republic of Macedonia, Dr. Gjorge Ivanov, at the opening of the new cycle of the national Best Business Plan Contest for secondary schools in Macedonia, held at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Skopje.

Young entrepreneurs, as President stressed, should not be satisfied only with obtaining knowledge and information. Obtained knowledge should be used creatively to produce new technological knowledge and apply it in practice.

”It is the only way that you can be competitive in the labor market and be ahead of your peers in the region and in the world”- the President conveyed this message to the young entrepreneurs. According to him, the entrepreneurial spirit should be instigated at the earliest age, built during the secondary education and upgraded in the higher education.

The traditional competition for best business ideas, President Ivanov said, slowly but surely is building up a new generation of Macedonian entrepreneurs the Macedonian economy will rely on in future. 

The new cycle of this contest for secondary schools, according to the principle of work, begins with a train-the-trainers course for the professors teaching entrepreneurship. Then, they organize in their respective schools internal competitions, select and appoint best teams for the national contest. The final contest is held in May.

The Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Atanas Kochev, considers that the real gain for the country is well prepared staff trained by professors in the secondary schools and universities. “All foreign investors seek first for well-trained staff. Therefore, together we need to build new and well-trained engineers who will meet the challenges of the technological development in the world”, Dean Kochev said.

Besides the secondary schools, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the National Centre for Development of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for already five years, with the support of the Austrian Development Agency, organize best business plan contests for graduate students. This year’s fund for participants up to 30 years of age is 21.000 Euros for the ten best business plans. Past contests resulted in opening of 40 start-up companies that are united in a Business Start-up Center. Before the start of the contest, today, there was a mini fair and the representatives had chance to present themselves. They also presented their ideas, services and achievements to President Ivanov, who visited the fair. At the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, President Ivanov got acquainted with the work of the recently opened laboratory for innovation.