The President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos was present at the awards ceremony last Friday for the competition held at the Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Centre by the Junior Achievement Greece/Association of Young Entrepreneurs.
Speakers included main opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Deputy Education, Research and Religion Minister Dimitris Baxevanakis, and US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, among others.
Pavlopoulos awarded students with the best virtual reality business projects with the first prize going to students from the Bougas School in Kalamata, who also won tickets to the Europe-wide Junior Achievement Europe competition in Belgrade on July 16-18.
The second prize went to XBand company (by Anatolia College, Thessaloniki), the third to Omiros – I shed Light on Culture (Professional high school, Aspropyrgos), and the fourth by A.FREedge (Ekpedeftiki Anagennissi).
The President spoke of healthy competition beginning early and of exposing students to the process of setting up a business in a truly free economy, where laws and regulations are followed. He also spoke of past bad practices, where business founders were treated with suspicion by the state and held back.
“After learning from our mistakes, it’s time to understand what it means to have a free economy, what it means to trust young people to develop their potential,” he said.
