Karoli Hindriks was just 16 when a school assignment changed her life. The idea that she came up with as part of a JA-YE programme - accessories that doubled as traffic safety reflectors - turned out to be patentable, and almost one million have been sold in Estonia and the rest of Europe.

"I remember when we got our first big client. Oh my god - it was SO cool. It was my first experience of what it means to sell something. After that I've had quite a few of those feelings, and every time I get it I understand why I'm doing this."

"Entrepreneurship has to be promoted, especially in the economic environment that we have today. People find themselves with nothing but their ideas. Now is the time to give them instruments and beliefs to start their own projects"

For Helen Wooldridge, founder of baby towel company Cuddledry, JA-YE provided her first taste of running a business.

"We did the programme in an after-school club so it wasn't an organic group of friends - it was a really diverse bunch and we had to make it work. It taught me about gaining the respect of my peers."

"Every child in school has different skills and aptitudes and for some of them going in to a company and working their way up might be right. But for some kids that is never going to make them happy. It should be a part of education to teach kids that setting up a business is a form of career."

"Because it's ours, we've been able to create Cuddledry to fit our lifestyles and the business hasn't suffered as a result. You can't do that if you're just in a job where somebody else dictates how you work."

A JA-YE programme at school sparked Rokas Salasevicius's interest in business. But it wasn't until he studied in California that he was inspired to leave his management consultancy job and work on his own ideas.

"I was very conservative. I was really afraid of failure. But in Silicon Valley the message is very clear: failure is the stuff you have to do. It's like you get a badge of honour, or a war wound you can show your grandchildren.

"Role models are important. What I remember from undergrad in Lithuania is a professor teaching some Schumpeter theories from the 1960s. But when you're at Stanford you get the message that the coolest thing in the world is to be an entrepreneur."

"In Lithuania we don't have many responsible businesses that you look at and say 'yeah - I want to be like that guy'. But in the US you see people who establish companies like not just to make money but because they want to change the world. You get a message of responsible entrepreneurship.

In Sweden, 20 year old Oscar Lundin founded social enterprise Young Care after taking a JA-YE course in school.

"There are so many older people who are lonely or isolated, and so many younger people without a job and who don't know what to do with the future. We wanted to create something to solve these two problems. So our consultants are young people who are paid to work in retirement homes at the weekends.

"I think entrepreneurship is a basic function in society. The human mindset wants change; it wants to improve things. And entrepreneurship is the creative tool to make things happen in that way.

"It's difficult to have this responsibility - it's like having a baby, this company. It's hard to take time off. But the reason we like Mondays is because it's not just work. It's like running a social movement here in Sweden.

Boris Kolev, now aged 20, founded his own IT and marketing company two years ago in Bulgaria.

"I can't really imagine my life if I hadn't come across JA-YE. Maybe I'd be a regular student playing sports and hanging out on facebook all day.

"You're taking responsibility all the time - not just financial but for your employees. That's the most difficult thing for me. But every success is so exciting - the first campaign we started in Bulgaria was a moment I will remember all my life."

Kristin Haug Hendig's invention - a tool to keep shop shelves organised - took her all the way to the JA-YE European finals in 2008.

"Three years ago I wouldn't have believed I could do any of this. Before I started the JA-YE programme I really wanted to work in a store or be a teacher.

"When I started school it was frightening to present something to 10 or 15 people, but during the competition I was asked to be on national TV and I had to say yes although it was terrifying. I knew I had to do it so I could grow as a person.

“The best thing is the feeling that you make a difference and that you can do it. The feeling that there are no people that you lean on. It’s all on you.”

Victoria Crawford
Producer
CNBC