Mar 15, 2019 – Over the last two years several teams representing Indonesia have achieved commendable success at the annual JA Asia Pacific Company of the Year Awards. In 2017 second place was secured in Tokyo, in 2018 first place in Beijing and the trend continued in Manila 2019. Two teams travelled to Manila – they were selected by our group of business professionals during the National Competition held in 2018 – to join their peers from 18 additional teams representing a total of 13 nations. The Indonesian teams were Sagasco Company from SMAN 3 Semarang and Zeal Company from SMAN 4 Denpasar and each team was represented by four 16-year-old members. The school based businesses had been operating within the schools over a period of 8 months with support from Citi Foundation and Citi Indonesia. Over the course of three days in Manila, all teams were assessed by a group of ten business professionals including engagement in a trade fair, presentation, interview and a company report.

Of the six awards presented to teams during the final evenings presentation dinner, three were awarded to the Indonesian teams and with these came opportunities to secure partial scholarships to attend US Universities as provided by the International University Alliance and Shorelight. The results:

Best Financial Management: Sagasco Student Company
Third Place Overall: Sagasco Student Company
Second Place Overall: Zeal Student Company
The winning team came from the host nation – Philippines.

Each of the eight teams are eligible to secure up to USD60,000 in scholarships to attend selected US Universities upon graduation from high school. Of course, the students from Zeal and Sagasco were extremely pleased to have been so competitive and to have achieved excellent results. PJI and the students we represent would like to thank the many individuals who have helped out with a special ‘shout-out’ to Taufiq Hidayat, Peter Meyer, Yosephin Dewi, Nazly Siregar, Chris Dickson, PT Triputra Agro Persada, and the team from Citi Indonesia.