Twenty-nine sixth-grade and second-year students of the Žatec Grammar School participated in the pilot run of the five-day Lyžák Jinak residential program from May 18 to 22, 2026. At the Opárno camping site, the grammar school students learned to recognize the real needs of customers, propose solutions, and defend them in front of a professional jury.
The program is inspired by the Austrian Entrepreneurship Week and the European Commission's EntreComp methodology and is built on the principle of "„learning by doing“". The students went through the entire process from problem identification through validation interviews with customers to the final presentation of the project. In addition to the four-member teaching team, consisting of Lucie Smolková, Petr Brothánek, Eva Peterková, Barbora Werdmolder, the students were supported by five mentors from the business environment: Vojtěch Knyttl, Richard Krajník, Aleš Wilk, Matouš Kostomlatský, Vanda Seidelová.
Skier's Association Otherwise implements intensive entrepreneurship development programs for secondary school students with a long-term ambition to gradually reach half of secondary schools in the Czech Republic. In cooperation with the Innovation Center of the Ústí nad Labem Region (ICUK) piloted for the first time in the Czech Republic, a residential version this educational, motivational and competitive program.
Program objective was to acquire or improve skills focusing on teamwork, customer communication, problem solving, presenting one's own idea, and working with uncertainty and feedback. The week culminated on Friday with the so-called Pitch Day, where teams presented their projects to a panel of experts.
Before the event itself program in Opárno, students graduated three meetings, where they learned the basic differences between entrepreneurship and business, looked for topics and challenges they saw in their surroundings and learned to validate them. The program was designed so that students would go through the entire cycle from idea to presentable project in five days.
IN Monday After an initial introduction and presentation of the program's goals, the students participated in individual pitches, divided into teams, and began working on the topic of customer needs. This was followed by an evening screening of a film focused on personal courage, and the initiative then opened with the key question of the entire week: "Is there a problem that people really want to solve?".
Tuesday was dedicated to validating ideas. Participants learned how to ask the right questions, define the target group, formulate a value proposition, and get feedback directly from customers, which for many of them was the first experience of confronting their own idea with reality.
Wednesday then moved the teams to design a specific solution, create simple prototypes, first financial considerations and divide roles in the team (CEO, marketing, finance, product). Individual consultations and practical feedback were provided to the teams by external mentors from the business environment Vanda Seidelová and Richard Krajník, and an important part of the day was also the ability to accept failure and adjust the original idea based on the knowledge gained.
The end of the week was devoted to the public defense of the projects. In Thursday The students prepared presentations, practiced storytelling, fine-tuned the argumentation and structure of pitches, and tried out performing in front of an audience in the form of so-called dry runs. Complementary team and outdoor activities strengthened mutual cooperation and trust, and the evening reflection showed their significant shift in self-confidence, communication, and courage to present their own ideas.
Friday Pitch Day was the culmination of the week. The teams presented the identified problem, target group, proposed solution, method of verification and basic economic reasoning to a professional jury, after which they received immediate feedback from the jury, went through a joint reflection of the entire week and received specific information on how they could continue with their projects.
Reflections showed that the program had an impact not only on students' knowledge, but also on their attitudes and self-confidence. Many of them reported that they were less afraid of speaking in front of people, gained more confidence in communication, understood the importance of collaboration, realized that mistakes are a natural part of the process, and began to think more about their own options for the future.
On behalf of ICUK, the coordinators of educational activities actively participated in the program: Matouš Kostomlatský, who mentored the teams in editing and finalizing the presentations, and Karolína Macková, who introduced the students to other possibilities for their development, and the programs and activities that ICUK offers. On Friday, the project and marketing manager of the RUR project Tamara Klein sat on the jury, together with Martin Kasa from APEK and Aleš Mlátilik from Lemondia.
„"Lyžák Dianka is exactly the type of activity that we want to support in the Ústí nad Labem Region. Over five days, students will experience what is usually not possible in school – confronting their own ideas with reality, working in a real team and the power of a simple 'ask the customer what they really need'. These are exactly the competencies our region needs in the transformation process", explainedTamara Klein from ICUK.
The pilot run of the Skier Otherwise residency program also paved the way for its further expansion. The goal of ICUK and other partners is to gradually bring the program to other high schools in the Ústí nad Labem region and beyond. Participants worked in teams, learned to ask the right questions, verified ideas directly in the field, and developed competencies that they will need regardless of the field they will pursue in the future: creativity, the ability to cooperate, communication, resistance to uncertainty, and the courage to present their own ideas.
„"Without the support of regional partners, such as the Innovation Center of the Ústí nad Labem Region, the program would not have been created in this form. Our goal is not to make students entrepreneurs at any cost, but to give them a safe environment to try out what it's like to start something, crash, modify it, and try again. Based on the feedback from the students, we believe that we succeeded in Žatec,", added Barbora Werdmölder, the main organizer of the Skier Otherwise program.
The Skier Otherwise program clearly showed that supporting similar activities is of fundamental importance not only for the development of individual students, but also for the future entrepreneurship, resilience, and activity of the young generation in the Ústí nad Labem Region.
➡️ The activity was co-financed by the RUR project - Region to University, University of the Region, registration number CZ.10.02.01/00/22_002/0000210 within the framework of the Operational Program Just Transformation, sub-activity KA1 A.2.37.
