Stanbic Bank announces regional finalists for National Schools’ Championship

Stanbic Bank has announced finalists for the National Schools’ Championship (NSC) programme and given out seed capital to all semi-finalists amounting to Shs12.5million.

The finalists were picked from four regions of Uganda after presenting their business plans categorised in different sectors.

The regional winners/finalists are: Kigumba Intensive S.S – Northern; KISS Pride Bakers Bakery, Busoga High School – Eastern – engaged in ‘Feed the Earth’ pesticide project, Kyebambe Girls S.S – Western – dealing in ‘Breeding black soldier Fly Larvae’ project and Kings College Budo from Central hit the finals with their shoe protection kit idea.

The western and central events were held virtually, a few days after the government had temporarily closed schools for 42 days to tame the spread of Covid-19.

The winners were picked from categories of Startup Challenge (business ideas) and Biz- grow challenge (businesses in school still operating even now).

Barbara Kasekende, the Stanbic Bank’s Corporate Social Investment Manager congratulated the winners and urged the other competitors not to lose hope.

She said: "These ideas speak to the sustainable development goals and feed into the planet, people and profit ideology thus we are teaching these children and communities how to do business sustainably which also speaks to what we want to achieve as a bank."

Seed capital was given to 20 projects that will be monitored weekly until the finals are held in August this year.

A total of 100 schools took part in this year’s competition. Overall, a total of 486 business ideas were submitted for the competition, in which 52% were male and 48% female.

Started in 2016, the National Schools Championship was started with the aim of empowering youth with skills and abilities to develop start-ups and become future engines of the economy.