On October 19 Macedonia2025 and NCDIEL (National Center for Development of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Learning) organized the “Get in the Ring” business idea pitching competition. The event offered many interesting business ideas at both levels of the competition. The young entrepreneurs at the high-school level showed their entrepreneurial capacity through a number of energetic and rather convincing presentations. It may be usual that young people have an idealistic view about doing business or making a product and contemplate lofty ideas, but this was not the case – for the most part – at the GITR competition. We heard practical products such as the weighted blanket, the modular backpack, the tower that cleans the air, the edible water pouch, the window blinds that absorb heat and insulate, and so on. At the end of the high-school segment, the jury had a hard time deciding between the weighted blanket and the modular backpack and after a close call, the blanket had more entrepreneurial weight and feasibility to it – but that is not to discourage the other candidates, because all of them have what it takes to become future business professionals.

The mentor of the “nano-heat” window blind team, from the Ibrahim Temo high school in Struga, Ms. Irena Stojcevska, said the competition has been an excellent engagement for the students and offered a venue where they can present their ideas in a structured way, to a professional audience that can ask the right questions and make the right comments. Ms. Stojcevska said, such competitions need to take place more frequently so that Republic of Macedonia can nurture a prospective ecosystem for young entrepreneurs.

The competition between year-old startups included business professionals who have been involved in companies, services and products for longer than one year. There were more than few aspects that separated this level of the competition from the other, such as products and services that are ready to compete on the market and the entrepreneurs having concrete outlook towards a more widespread commercialization. Some of the startups offer solutions for the tourism sector, a taxi-hailing app, a smart fruit and vegetable greenhouse, a re-insurance optimization software, a telehealth-care solution and more. The jury that included senior business professionals, representatives of investment funds and company executives engaged the entrepreneurs by asking them all the right and “wrong” questions regarding their business ideas.

The winning team Systems for Enterprise, is made up of young professionals who have in-depth understanding of the insurance industry as well as coding skills that enabled them to put together an attractive solution to insurance providers. Their solution helps the provider to select the highest protection for a certain amount of ceded premium or lowest amount of premium ceded to a certain level of reinsurance protection.

You can visit the web site of the entrepreneurship competition winners at the following link http://www.optimalreinsurance.com/

Macedonia2025 is proud for having provided a venue that helped the entrepreneurs face a jury of senior business professionals and potential investors.

We will continue to encourage young and ambitious entrepreneurs in Macedonia to take part in events that help them push their own limits and “break the ice” in talking to potential investors. These events are also platforms where the entrepreneurs can promote themselves and generate attention to their inventions and ideas. We are looking forward to the next GITR event and in the meantime, we invite entrepreneurs in Macedonia to keep in touch with Macedonia2025 regarding our next events, such as the LEADER Project 2017.

To see the event photos click HERE