Students from Miriam College High School recently won first place in the Best in Product Innovation category of the annual Teenpreneur Challenge Expo.

The event, held last Oct. 12-13 at the SM Megamall Event Center was hosted by SM Supermalls as part of its effort to support social entrepreneurship.

The Teenpreneur Challenge, spearheaded by the Entrepreneur School of Asia (ESA), is a 14-week competition where high school teams are tasked to introduce innovations to the livelihood products of their partners from underprivileged communities. This year’s beneficiaries were micro-businesses in Malabon, Boni, and Caloocan.

Students from Miriam College High School won for their tomato jam project, while the teams from St. Paul College Pasig and Xavier School ranked second and third for their global flavors of siomai and pan de choco projects, respectively.

Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila School won Best in Sales, followed by St. Paul College Pasig. Ateneo High School, and Colegio San Agustin were declared third placers. St. Paul College Pasig also won the Best in Booth Display award, while Ateneo High School and Aquinas School ranked second and third place, respectively.

The contestants were awarded for their innovation, design, and sales achieved during the competition. Inspired by the goal of the contest, the students are looking forward to use the entrepreneurial skills they’ve gained to assist their partner businesses in expanding.

“What’s important is that we learned how entrepreneurship works. We will definitely try our best to support our nanay after this,” says Alyssa Encarnacion from Miriam College, referring to their beneficiary from the micro-business assigned to them.

Johanna Rupisan, of the SM Cares Program for Social Entrepreneurship, said that they support the program as these participants are among the most important drivers of development in the country.

“We want them to keep the spirit of entrepreneurship burning and encourage their innovative spirit,” she shares.

According to ESA director of Academics Eduardo Silva, the competition, which is now on its seventh year, is directed towards helping uplift the lives of various underprivileged communities.

“The culminating event is the expo at SM Megamall, where we have held it for the last five years. And every year, with the help of our partners, it has been a big success. We’ve helped over 1,400 students, over 100 communities, and we’ve raised a couple of million of pesos in the process,” he says.

Other schools that participated were Colegio Sto. Domingo, Falcon School, Infant Jesus Academy, La Salle College Antipolo, Makati Hope Christian School, Paref Northfield School, and Tabernacle of Faith Christian School.

Silva noted how entrepreneurship plays a key role in economic development. Through this endeavor, ESA aims to instill the importance of helping others and the country.

“We would like to encourage the youth to create more jobs for others by starting their own businesses. They don’t have to wait until they graduate from college or become millionaires to make an impact. They can do it at a young age,” he adds.