Monday 20 June 2016

Never lose your sense of wonder! – Game of Tones at the JA Europe Company of the Year Competition

Having received the title Mini-company of the Year 2016 in Hungary, Game of Tones got the opportunity to represent our country at the JA Europe Competition in Lucerne, Switzerland between July 25 and 27, 2016.
The flagship programme of the organization Junior Achievement is the Company Programme, which offers high school students the opportunity to learn how to move a business idea from concept to reality. To their annual competition, the best mini-companies of the participating 36 countries are invited to introduce themselves and compete for the award JA Europe Company of the Year.

The competition involves a written company report, a stage presentation, a panel interview between the jury and the company members and a stand exhibition. A high-level panel of judges is present at the contest, who, in 2016, represented companies like Ricoh, Nestlé or UniCredit Bank. The jury evaluated the students’ approach to communication, teamwork, problem-solving, objective-setting, planning and review, administration and financial systems, product development, customer focus, marketing and sales, as well as financial results. Then, they gave out several awards sponsored by such huge companies as FedEx, MetLife, AXA or UBS.
After winning the Hungarian contest in June, Game of Tones started an intense preparation process even though summer was coming and everyone was a bit tired. We designed and produced new products like the World Map, the School Agenda and the postcards, took part in a communication training and strengthened our online presence. In the meantime, we gave interviews to local newspapers, television and radio, which just kept coming.
Then came the trip to Switzerland for Gyula Kajner, Zoltán Rácz, Máté Farkas, Anna Kovács and Réka Szűcs accompanied by our teacher Adriána Aczkov. After a long day of travelling, we had the chance to participate in two lectures on global trade and innovations. Tuesday was a tiny bit stressful as we had to survive the panel interview and the stage presentation, which we actually did brilliantly. The prize of the day was the boat trip on the lake. On the next day, we set up our stand at the railway station and managed to sell a lot of our products during the 6 hours the fair lasted.
The whole event closed off with a gala dinner and the awards, which landed with other mini-companies, not Game of Tones, but we did not mind. We were happy to have experienced the atmosphere.

The main award was given to the Danish company ‘SubReader’, app helps dyslexic people to read subtitles on international TV and movies aloud. It operates independently of TV or other media and does even not require any setup. The 1st Runner-Up was the Slovak company who produced universal remote controllers for smartphones, while the 2nd Runner-Up was from the UK, who came up with children’s stories for young cancer patients.

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