Young minds bring new perspective

COMMERCE Ballarat’s Mindshop Excellence program, designed to take Year 10 students out of their comfort zone and into the world of business, is up and running.

Groups from six schools are spending this week imbedded in businesses working towards solving a real problem.

The theme of recycling was a strong factor for two of the schools.

Phoenix P12 College is looking at waste management for the Western Hotel, while team of three from Loreto College is focussed on packaging at a joint collaboration with Albins Performance Transmissions and Ballarat Tech School.

“The tools we learnt on day one will be valuable for this project,” Bella Ness, Loreto team leader, said. “We will use a lot of them for our scope to develop a prototype for a premium kit that is lean in its manufacture and markets the product professionally.

“We have split it into three parts then we pull it all together for our presentation.”

Teammate Juels Valpied was focused on both style and function of the task.

“We want to make sure the packaging not only looks good but it has to be re-usable,” she said.

Phoenix team leader Hayley Ruddick said her group was assessing the current state of the waste collection area at the hotel.

Two teammates interviewed the head chef and kitchen hands to see how rubbish is currently distributed.

“We are researching how other businesses have dealt with this problem,” Hayley said. “We photographed the rubbish areas to help us focus on the scope.”

Waste collection and sorting for recycling is a big problem for everyone, teammate Tyler Lenehan said.

“Not just here at the hotel but also at other businesses and homes as well,” he said. “It needs to be changed, otherwise the world is going to be filled with rubbish.”

Hayley added, “If we solve it hear it could be used everywhere.”