The non-profit organization Junior Achievement Slovakia – the Young for the Future organized the seventh annual Slovak competition entitled the Best Website of a Students‘ company. The TOP 10 websites qualified for the final round of the competition, which was held on June 3, 2008 in Bratislava at the project’s main partner, the company S&T Varias.

“The company S&T Varias has been a member of the supervisory board of the organization Junior Achievement Slovakia for a longer time. As far as ongoing competitions and projects of the organization are concerned, our company supports regularly two projects, namely “The Competition for the Best Website of a Students’ Company“ and “Competition Young Leader“. We identify ourselves with the concept and the main mission of these activities, which is preparation of secondary school students for real business. Moreover, we are happy that through active participation of the S&T Varias representatives in the evaluation commission we can provide valuable advice and maybe even show to these young talents a direction for their further development,“ said Peter Kucer, S&T Varias Country General Manager.

The Competition for the Best Website is a part of the educational program Applied Economics, in which students set up and run their own businesses. Nowadays, using of internet for propagation and trade is a necessity for many businesses. That is why we try to motivate students to become active internet users. Despite of the fact that a generation of young people is entering the labour market, which take modern technologies more or less for granted, for many secondary school students this competition is often the first opportunity to gain experience in web designing and present their skills in the public. Moreover, it is also an opportunity for students’ companies to promote their products and services and last but not least to train presentation skills and creativity.

A total of 37 websites from all over Slovakia enrolled in the competition this school year. In the final round, the authors of top ten websites defended their work before a commission consisting of experts.

„Similarly as in the last year, also this year finalists presented their results, which can be often evaluated by professional criteria. On one hand, experts often see that this is the first experience of the competition’s participants with such technologies, on the other hand thanks to their creativity and drive they manage to beat even many professionally designed websites,“ said commission’s chairman Peter Lang, Datalock, a.s.

„We enrolled into the competition for websites of students’ companies from the secondary vocational school specializing in wine and fruits growing in Modra within the project Applied Economics with the aim to present, as well as develop our skills. Taking into account my specialization in school, I appreciated the opportunity to present myself and learn something more from this area. The commission was very objective and critical, which certainly helped everybody to learn from one’s own mistakes and improve one’s work. In generally, I appreciate mainly those schools, which enrolled in the competition as beginners in web designing. The websites were original and varied, since each team designed its website in a different way. I hope that I will devote myself to this activity also in the future.“

Lubomir Slimak, Secondary vocation school specializing in wine and fruits growing, Modra.