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Entrepreneurial Students Launch Businesses

Students as young as 10 years old, have launched their own online businesses

Dwight School Dubai is known for its signature Spark Tank program, which encourages students to develop entrepreneurial, innovation, and leadership skills beyond the classroom nurturing and developing young entrepreneurs, giving them the opportunity to ignite their spark of genius and pursue their passions.

During lockdown, whilst continuing with distance learning and throughout the Summer, three stand out students developed their passions and have begun their journey to be entrepreneurs;

Lina, 10 years old, Grade 5 is a passionate art student whose goal is to spread happiness through her fashion designs. She spent her summer taking art courses, meeting artists and creating designs. As a result, she launched her own clothing label Fashion Frista, selling T-Shirts for her peer group.

Lina said: “I’ve always had a passion for fashion design, and I felt that there was nothing out there for us 10-year olds. That’s when I came up with the idea of creating really cool designs for clothing. I’ve had a great response so far, and I’m planning to introduce more products such as bucket hats, phone cases and shoe stickers.  Together with Dwight School Dubai I’m planning to develop my business skills further to become a successful entrepreneur.”

Arisha, 10 years old, Grade 5, spent the last few months building her own slime lab.  During quarantine she produced almost 20 different types of slime, and launched Slimy Tales, selling slime to like-minded kids in Dubai. The next step for Arisha is to develop her community initiaves and launch a range of online events, teaching other slime fans, how to create her masterpieces.

Arisha “Kids can’t get enough of slime - a wonderful gooey substance and great for stress release. I decided to make it into a cool and fun toy, with lots of textures and colours. My mission is to spread smiles with slimes.  Every purchase helps me raise funds for the many under privileged children around the world.”

Grade 11 student, 16-year-old, Adam, 16 years old love for design and fashion resulted in the launch of his own streetwear label KYO.  

“I wanted to express my own form of fashion and bring something different to the table. Large designers and brands such as Virgil Abloah and Bape inspired my drive for this, seeing their success, and I’ve been inspired by pop culture, Instagram, and other designers.”

Adam developed his own graphic designs for the collection, and began with producing T-Shirts. This was followed by two hoodie designs and two shirt designs, and then he released a further five designs for his 2020 collection. Having already sold 10% of his stock, Adam is looking to grow his brand within six months amongst the streetwear community in the UAE through a variety of initiatives and activations.

As part Dwight’s Spark Tank program, the school has recently developed a new innovative curriculum model ‘The Spark Framework’ which covers major areas of life for which the school has to prepare the students including; Design Thinking, Enterprise (Young Entrepreneurs), Social Media and digital content creation, Coding, Robotics and AI and Sustainable Development Goals and Global awareness. The Spark Framework has already inspired a new session called ‘Young Entrepreneurs’, which supports the schools Primary Years Program ‘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, MYP Design Teacher and Spark Tank Coordinator, at 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 recognize 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 program.”