In partnership with Junior Achievement Ireland, the Dublin office completed another chapter in the successful bespoke global program that is BizAcademy. Our BizAcademy blogs are usually reflections by the graduates, so for a change I thought it would be interesting to review what our volunteers thought of the experience. We conducted a survey, these are the highlights.
Q How would you rate your experience as a BizAcademy volunteer?
57% said excellent, 43% said Very Good
Q Why did you decide to volunteer for BizAcademy?
I wanted to do more for the foundation and I liked the idea of helping teenagers become more confident and knowledgeable
It's just such a wonderful idea. Mainstream education doesn't provide opportunities like this to students so I saw this as a unique opportunity to get involved with a mentoring program that was reasonably low calorie but could have quite a dramatic impact on the lives of a small group of students
I feel it is incumbant on me to try to inspire the young people today. I worry that many of them are wandering in the desert and I wanted to do something to give some direction to them
Q Do you feel your time at BizAcademy was well spent?
57% said excellent, 43% said Very Good
Q Would you volunteer to participate in future BizAcademy programs?
100% Yes!
Q What was your most memorable BizAcademy moment
I would not be able to narrow down one memorable moment of BizAcademy...
I thought from start to finish the event was first class and a roaring succesthat the student i was mentoring said " nevermind lunch, let's talk more about this " when doing the V2MOM life thinggy
The Dragons den. When one girl was asked where she saw the company in five years time, she paused, bit her lip, stared at the ceiling and replied "I can't answer that but I'll get back to you." Also one guy talked to us about sending messages to our "Blueberries"!
A Biz student (Dylan) arguing with Dragon (Robert Gavin) over negotiating their commission for the employment agency. It went a little something like this... "Well you know yourself Robert even as CEO of a company like mine, you don't agree to a deal without running the numbers by the guys in finance." It was so impressive to see him have the confidence to speak up and not just take the first deal we threw at him
Q.Given the amount of time, energy and resources it takes to deliver this program, do you feel the outcomes outweigh the effort in terms of youth impact, company success, employee engagement, and Foundation mission?
Definitely Yes 86% Yes 14%
Thank You David Dempsey, Damien Barry, Ciara Brady, Eilis O'Shea, Ciara Williams, Nidia Marquez, Mark Stanley, Alan O'Connor, Kieran guckian, Rosia Carley, Alli Leech, Robert Ryder, Marco Nuti, Sally Koornneef, Kieran Carrick, Joe McNally, Andrew Connell, Carl Dempsey, Christian Mielke, Mark Lagerstrom, Robert Gavin, Aref Al - Azzani, Ronan Rafferty, Philip Cleary, Korstiaan Hardam, Fiachra O'Corey, Andrew Dungan, Stephen Mason, Ciaran Shanley, John O'Keefe, Carel De Wet, Sanj Bharyo, Philip Dunne, Nadja D'Arcy, Loic Mosse, Aonghus Flynn, Carla Farrelly, Richard Doyle
