Shell Iniciativa Jovem Celebrates 20 Years In Action

Since 2000, Shell Iniciativa Jovem has been helping Brazil’s entrepreneurs to strengthen their businesses, gain access to crucial skill-building courses, and create impact for local communities. One of the programme’s key activities has been to host a Business Fair celebrating and promoting their entrepreneurs. While in past years this event has taken place in Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Tomorrow, a famous museum of innovation, 2020’s fair was brought online. Despite this initial modification, the fair kicked off to two dynamic days of events and presentations, in which the 65 entrepreneurs from the programme saw their businesses showcased and their profiles raised.

Shell Iniciativa Jovem Connections was also a great way to celebrate Shell Iniciativa Jovem’s 20-year anniversary. Youtube live streams and presentations by high-level panelists were broken down into three categories: diversity and value generation for businesses, challenges and opportunities for peripheral entrepreneurs, and technology for socio-environmental businesses. Attendees were able to virtually “walk” through the exhibition space, where each of the 65 recent cohort graduates had a “stand” devoted to their business. In line with this virtual exhibition space, entrepreneurs had their own “wall” space on which to share relevant social media posts and communications. This enabled interested clients or stakeholders to get in touch with them directly.

What’s more, eight of the recent graduates were presented with a Shell Iniciativa Jovem Award as a prize for the progress they had made on their businesses and an evaluation of their current operations. The three top prizes were awarded to:

• Traveller XP: a website offering authentically Afro-Brazilian bespoke cultural experiences. Experiences meet quality, safety criteria and ethical standards. The team also offers help with travel planning and payment.
• Kurandé sells natural cosmetics and herbal products created in the Complexo do Alemão, which promotes self-care and the strengthening of the self-esteem of black and indigenous people. The brand is based on ancestral sciences and a production process focused on sustainability.
• Tissue engineering aims to restore, maintain or improve tissues that have been damaged. In this context, InBio - Two is inserted and helps promote bone growth.

Overall, the event was a resounding success. Almost 4,000 viewers tuned into the Youtube live stream, and there were over 200,000 reactions across Shell Iniciativa Jovem’s social media accounts. Kudos to this team for always striving to reach wider audiences, and best wishes to this cohort of stellar LiveWIRE entrepreneurs inspiring innovation every day. Please visit https://www.iniciativajovem.org.br/site/ for further information about Shell Iniciativa Jovem.