Judging the Junior FUTURPreneur Business Simulation Challenge 2026: When Secondary Students Mean Business
Yesterday, I had the privilege of serving as a judge at the Junior FUTURPreneur Business Simulation Challenge 2026 — and honestly, I left the room genuinely inspired.
The competition, hosted at HKBU Wyatt Theatre and organized by the International Association of Business Management Simulation with support from idcetech Education, brought together secondary school students to tackle something most adults find intimidating: running a real business under pressure.
More Than a Typical Competition
This wasn't a poster presentation or a theory exam. Students had to make live, real-time business decisions — pricing, production, marketing strategy — inside a business simulation engine that calculated their actual profit and loss based on every choice they made. There was no faking it. The numbers don't lie.
Watching secondary school students wrestle with FMCG market dynamics, balance cost structures, and pitch their decisions confidently to a panel of judges — it was a completely different level of learning.
Standout Moment: Finance Bros & the Labubu Biscuit
One team that caught my attention was Finance Bros from Maryknoll Convent School (Secondary Section). Their product concept — a Labubu-themed biscuit tapping into the Healing Economy trend — was sharp, timely, and backed by real consumer behaviour analysis.
They broke down the Dopamine Loop behind blind box culture, explained scarcity-driven social status, and connected it all to a tangible FMCG product. That is the kind of thinking you would expect from a university marketing team.
The Panel of Judges
We were honoured to have four distinguished judges bring their expertise to the panel:
Donny Siu — Founding Director of the Entrepreneurship Incubation and Development Centre at EdUHK. Formerly head of HKUST Entrepreneurship Centre, nurturing 600+ startups and witnessing 9 unicorns emerge.
Dr. Ben Kwok (郭耀華博士) — Recipient of the VTC Staff Excellent Award 2021. Currently serves as President of the Hong Kong Chinese Postgraduate Association and ISO 9001 Quality Management System Lead Auditor.
Professor Ryan Man (文國樑教授) — Scholar at the School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, specialising in economics education and AI-integrated blended learning. Recipient of the HKBU Excellent Teaching Team Award and Outstanding Performance in Teaching Award.
Alex Kwok — Founder, INSPIRE Education and Coxana Innovation Limited. Passionate about empowering the next generation through Design Thinking and real-world entrepreneurship education.
From Design Thinking to the Stage
At INSPIRE Education, our startup competition training is not just about winning — it is about building the mindset to tackle real problems. We use a Design Thinking approach — empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test — as the foundation for every project-based learning experience.
Students do not just study business concepts. They live them: interviewing real users, identifying pain points, iterating on ideas, and finally pitching to real judges in a real setting. The Finance Bros team is a perfect example — they did not just pick a trendy product. They traced it back to human psychology, social behaviour, and market timing.
This is exactly the kind of experiential, project-based entrepreneurship education we champion at INSPIRE — because classroom theory alone will never prepare students for the messy, exciting reality of building something from scratch.
Why This Matters
Events like the Junior FUTURPreneur Challenge give students a taste of what it truly means to make decisions under uncertainty. When they graduate from this experience, they do not just have a trophy — they have a story, a process, and the confidence to try again.
To every student who competed: your creativity and courage inspired everyone in that room yesterday. 🙏
🤝 We warmly invite secondary schools to partner with INSPIRE Education — through Design Thinking workshops and startup competition training, empowering students with real-world entrepreneurial experience.
📧 Contact us: admin@coxana.com
Alex Kwok is the founder of INSPIRE Education and Coxana Innovation Limited, dedicated to empowering students through real-world STEM and entrepreneurship experiences.