Four student and faculty representatives from the John Brown University Enactus Club attended the Enactus World Cup 2022 in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Oct. 30 through Nov. 2. The editor-in-chief of the Threefold Advocate, Gabriela Arosemena attended the event as one of the students representing the University.
The Enactus World Cup gathers students and education leaders from universities around the world to connect and take part in a friendly competition between Enactus clubs. Assistant professor Jade Choppala, graduate assistant Brennan Young, sophomore Oak Martin and senior Gabriela Arosemena attended the annual event in an attempt to “understand ‘what good looks like’ so that we can make decisions on the focus for the future of Enactus JBU,” Choppala said.
The final competitors of the Enactus World Cup are chosen from over 37,000 university students down to the National Champion teams from over 32 countries, according to the Enactus website. “Each team presents the entrepreneurial projects that are making an impact on the Global Goals in their communities right now, and that have the momentum to launch new social enterprises, create new careers and scale impact,” the organization explains.
The four-day event was packed with colorful experiences filled with competition, celebration of cultures and networking. It included two main events: the Enactus World Cup Competition and the Impaction Race Competitions: Race for Climate Action, Race to Rethink Plastic, 1 Race 4 Oceans and Race to Feed the Planet.
There were also several forums and networking sessions catered distinctively for students and faculty members. The first-ever Pitch Demo Day, for example, was a social enterprise session that showcases student innovation to large industry-leading companies and investors.
At the student forums, students discussed their experiences in the club, as well as the differences in the approach project leaders use to collaborate with their teams. An attendee from the United Kingdom said that in their university there were pitch-day sessions that felt like the show, Shark Tank.
Faculty members also had separate sessions where they shared best practices on career development and on leading Enactus clubs. “I met advisors from Puerto Rico and South Africa. The advisors shared that partnerships with organizations and corporations are critical in South Africa and business skill development is critical in Puerto Rico,” Choppala said.
Choppala and Young also meet advisors from Enactus clubs from other universities in the United States and discussed the challenges their clubs faced. “We also networked with advisors from Brigham Young University Hawaii and Capella University in Seattle. They shared specifics of club structure and what they are struggling with in their projects. BYU struggles with students preferring to spend time on their project development as opposed to competition training which can take up to three hours per day. Capella struggles with Q&A for competitions and not having engineering majors to help design projects,” Choppala said.
After three days of tough competition, students from Ain Shams University representing Enactus Egypt became the 2022 Enactus World Champions and winners of the $50,000 Ford Better World Award for presentation of their social innovation, Crevita.
Following their experience, the Enactus club members from John Brown University expect to implement a few changes to the way the JBU club currently works. “Our strategic focus is to accelerate innovation for impact. We plan to do this by taking a hard look at every action we take to ensure we are adding value directly to project development.” Enactus JBU is not so focused on entering the competition process just yet. “Competitions drive engagement and accountability with students, but do detract from project development due to training demands,” Choppala added. The last time Enactus JBU competed at the Enactus World Cup was for the 2017 edition in London, United Kingdom.
Choppala invites students from any major interested in social enterprise to join Enactus and become part of the global program. “We are building social entrepreneurial business ideas that support the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals to solve the world’s biggest problems and that will take prioritization (head), disciplined project management (hand), and inspiration (heart),” she said.