University students have taken part in this year’s national presentation organised by Students In Free Enterprise Malta (SIFE). Launched in 2005, and prompted by the interest of HSBC Bank Malta plc, SIFE mobilises university students to create economic opportunity for others, while discovering their own potential.
At SIFE’s national event, which was held at the Hilton Conference Centre, the students presented their projects to a panel of judges comprised of leading Maltese business people. The projects presented were “Artists Wantit”, “Euro Changeover”, “Green Office”, “Today’s Students Tomorrow’s Performers” and “Women Entrepreneurs”.
The projects promote themes and practices such as financial literacy, entrepreneurship, business start-ups, personal skills, marketing and business ethics.
The panel judging the SIFE presentations, composed of Mary L Agius, head of Diversity Learning and Development, HSBC Bank Malta plc, Charló Bonnici from the Education Ministry and David Pace from KPMG, gave their feedback and advice to the students on how they could improve their projects and make them more beneficial to their target audiences. The five SIFE students from the University of Malta will now go on to represent Malta at the SIFE European Symposium, which will be held in Poland later on in the year.
“The HSBC Group teamed up with SIFE International in March 2005 with a $3
million commitment to the organisation’s financial
literacy programme,” said HSBC Bank Malta plc head of Marketing Brian Tortell.
“The bank in Malta was among the very first to follow this up, ensuring students in Malta gained access to the SIFE programmes as quickly as possible.”
Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and the Self Employed Edwin Vassallo said he believed in the importance of communication, particularly with
students.
“We need to ensure that we are on the same frequency as they are, in order to be able to communicate fully with them. We want to instill a more entrepreneurial mindset in order to introduce students to the real world of commerce and entrepreneurship. SIFE UMT has achieved a lot, and I am sure that they will continue to be successful,” he said.
More information about SIFE is available from the website www.sife.org