COVID-19: Three students from UAE school use extra time at home to launch enterprises

Dubai: Three Dubai students managed to launch their own “businesses” during the COVID-19 related movement restrictions that were in place earlier this year.

While continuing with distance learning and through the summer, the trio from Dwight School Dubai began their entrepreneurial journey as part of the IB curriculum school’s ‘Spark Tank’ programme, which encourages students to develop entrepreneurial and other skills beyond classroom learning.

As part Dwight’s Spark Tank programme, the school has recently developed a new curriculum model called ‘The Spark Framework’, which covers enterprise and many other areas such as social media and digital content creation, coding, robotics and artificial intelligence. The Spark Framework has already inspired a new session called ‘Young Entrepreneurs’, which supports the schools Primary Years Programme (PYP) students and their ideas. This will eventually lead to helping with testing and marketing their products within the school community and beyond.

Evo Hannan, Middle Years Programme Design Teacher and Spark Tank Coordinator, Dwight School Dubai, said: “It’s very important for us here at Dwight School Dubai to embrace the individuality of each learner as no two students are the same and therefore we recognise and foster each student’s gift and talents. We are incredibly proud of our students who have demonstrated their entrepreneurial skills, and will continue to support them in developing their businesses through the Spark Tank and our Young Entrepreneurs programme.”