The UAE Chapter of GE Volunteers, an internal organisation of GE, joined hands with Injaz, a non-profit business education organisation, to host a camp focusing on innovation skills for female students in the UAE.

The annual Innovation Camp offered a hands-on learning experience for about 80 students from the Ras Al Khaimah Women’s Higher College of Technology. Eight GE Volunteers took part in a mentoring programme over a full-day, providing students the opportunity to develop innovative solutions to address a business challenge by drawing on creative thinking, team work, communications and leadership skills.

Elliot Lewis of GE Volunteers said: “The Innovation Camp organised by Injaz is a perfect fit to the central credo of GE to promote innovation and imagination. Over the nearly eight decades of GE’s operations in the Middle East, the focus of the company was to promote a culture of localized innovation to address the region’s specific requirements.”

“The Innovation Camp was a novel way to reach out to student talent, encourage them to think creatively, promote the spirit of entrepreneurship and work-readiness, and set the foundation for business leadership.”

At the Innovation Camp, a special business challenge was drawn out in the form of a competition with the students, mentored by GE Volunteers, having to address the concern by developing an imaginative business plan.

The 80 participating students were grouped into teams of 8 to 10 each, who demonstrated their eagerness to develop new methods of communication, learn about each other’s strengths and talents and eventually putting together the business proposition.

Each business plan stood out for its ingenuity and teamwork, and the plan for an online children’s furniture store called Royal Children’s Furniture to be ‘designed and made in Ras Al Khaimah’ was selected as the winner. The group that put together the plan won a place in the Junior Achievement Company Program.

GE is a member of the regional Injaz Al Arab board and globally has representation on the Junior Achievement board.

Volunteering is central to GE’s commitment to the societies it serves in, and some 175 GE Volunteer Councils in 46 countries and over 100,000 volunteers undertake over one million hours of community service every year. – TradeArabia News Service