The BA (Hons) Business Management Top-Up degree offered by Next Campus which is affiliated to Teesside University, UK has challenged the status quo of higher education in Sri Lanka. One would expect to engage in an internship opportunity once they enroll to a university to get the necessary work experience, but what Next Campus offers undergrads much more - to work in their own start-ups.

The one year part-time program requires undergraduates to form their own company and run for a stipulated time period. They are assessed based on the financial returns generated, the digital marketing campaign undertaken, CSR initiatives of the company, team work and leadership skills exhibited by the teams throughout the project.
The debut program features 4 teams with each team running a stall at the Good Market, Colombo. Among them, Team ‘Chà’, headed by Charaka Perera is one of the teams that would catch anybody’s attention.

In the Sinhalese lingo, ‘cha’ will be a term used to express something unimpressive. But did you know that ‘chà’ is actually the Chinese term for Tea? Thank you Google Translate.

And that is not the only interesting fact about this business, Team Chà is in the process of making history as it will be the first ever start-up at the Good Market which will provide a unique Tea-Tasting experience to all the Good Market-goers. These sessions will be conducted by a tea tasting professional and would truly be an once-in-a-lifetime experience.

In addition to this novel service, Chà’s product portfolio also includes 100% organic fruit flavored iced tea (mmm, yum!) and greeting cards made out of recycled paper and tea.

This is definitely an interesting business model and the team is pretty confident on their proposed operation at the Good Market.

Do you want to be a part of creating history and taste the refreshing goodness of organic iced tea? Then head on over to Good Market, Race Course on Saturday, the 20th to be a part of something amazing.