More than a month ago, Mr. Exxon Yu dropped by my H4-B classroom and gave me and all the other potential Team Xavier members an opportunity of a lifetime – to participate in the country’s first inter-school competition geared towards young entrepreneurship. Initial impression from the entire 15-man team was that the competition was just a two-day seminar; little did we know that we would have to spend our next month in meeting rooms and Gawad Kalinga (GK) compounds.

      Sponsored by the GoNegosyo movement and the Entrepreneur’s School of Asia (ESA), the Teenpreneur Challenge was conceived by the school’s co-founders Vivienne Tan and Joel Santos and was aimed to drive high school students towards social responsibility and entrepreneurial skills. The gist of the seminars was conducted during the two days back in January and we were then left on our own with the help of our assigned mentors and Xavier alumni, Mr. Johnlu Koa of French Baker and Mr. Carson Tan of Aquabest. Competing against 29 other teams from across Metro Manila, we were tasked to take a designated Gawad Kalinga livelihood product and turn it into something more marketable; in Xavier’s case – the SPG Peanut Butter.

      Four weeks was the time given to us before the launch of the Teenpreneur Bazaar outside the Mall of Asia last March 3-4, 2007, where within this span of time we were expected to analyze, conceptualize, and in the end, produce a more marketable product. With the dedication of our team, we were able to turn the bland SPG Peanut Butter into what is now known as the Peanut Farm Brand Peanut Butter by changing its image through market differentiation, positioning and segmentation. These concepts were put into concrete action by the repackaging, new ingredients, and overall hygiene factors present in the product, which were channeled through endless personal connections between our team members.

      One week before the bazaar date and we still did not have our product. Despite the frustrations that come along with the process, we took these and made it our own motivation to finish what we had started. Several of us visited GK on a couple of occasions, continually negotiating and finding the correct solution to our problems that included consistency, content and more importantly, the funds.

      Our efforts paid off during the two-day bazaar as Xavier School reaped awards in the two categories present: 2 nd Place for Product Development and 1 st Place for Most Sellable Product. However, more than these honors that we were able to give to our school, the most important lesson our team learned from this one-of-a-kind non-academic experience is that entrepreneurs are the catalysts of change in society. Entrepreneurs are not just businessmen; in truth, entrepreneurship is a discipline that entails the entire giving of oneself to one’s career choice and taking the initiative to get things done.

      Thank you for your support! Luceat Lux!

      You can catch the last of the three-part Teenpreneur Challenge series on March 12, 2007 on RPN9 at 10:30pm.

Team Xavier to the Teenpreneur Challenge is composed of the following:

Joseph Chan 2A

Carlo Borromeo 2B

Miguel de Jesus 2B

Jordan Lim 3A

Filbert Tiu 3B

James Sy 3C

Alejandro Ty 3D

Louie Yu 3F

Carlo Chong 4B

Matthew Calibo 4C

Emmanuel King 4C

Jason Tan 4D

Thompson Tang 4D

Miguel Naval 4E

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