University students compete with entrepreneurial skills

University students introduce their community outreach projects to business judges at a community outreach project competition held in Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan, on April 9.

Hundreds of students representing 29 universities in Central and West China competed in a community outreach project competition held by Enactus in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, on April 9.

Enactus is a nonprofit organization established in 1975. It encourages university students to use their entrepreneurial skills to find solutions for problems and issues affecting people in their local communities.

Enactus today unites 62,000 students at 1,600 universities with 3,300 academics and business leaders from 450 enterprises worldwide.

Enactus teams presented business judges with their community outreach projects, including plans related to sustainable environment development, health care and education, culture and skill inheritance, and agricultural economic development.

The business judges, most of whom are managers or directors from established enterprises like Agilent Technologies, ANZ, KPMG China and Unilever, evaluated the projects on how they could help communities improve quality of life and achieve sustainable development.

Twelve teams advanced to the national finals. They are from Xi'an International Studies University, Chengdu University of Technology, Southwest University For Nationalities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Chongqing University, Chongqing Normal University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Huazhong Agricultural University, Xi'an Eurasia University, Northwestern University, Southwest University of Finance and Economy, and Hunan Normal University.

The national finals will be held at the National Convention Center in Beijing on May 16 and 17. The national champion will represent China in the 2013 Enactus World Cup Competition in Mexico in late September this year.