Look out, world. The next generation of business leadership is smart, savvy and innovative — at least as seen through the prism of the Business Plan Challenge.

James Sawyer, Michelle Black and Julia Geiger of Ransom Everglades took home first place in the 2011 High School Track for their plan for Kit Korp. Kit Korp would offer family-friendly hurricane kits with creative additions like a hurricane cookbook and games, and it could be expanded to offer other types of preparedness kits, the team said. While the three students developed the business plan as part of an economics class, they said participating in the Challenge exposed them to the idea of entrepreneurship and are intrigued by the possibilities. They are now seniors.

Sawyer spent the summer as creative director for the ERGO Project and work is ongoing. Let’s let him explain: “We are constructing devices that allow students to measure cosmic ray activity and link their data to a global network, creating in some sense, the world’s largest telescope. Our goal is to introduce students to scientific research and get them interested in the sciences. We have already placed units across the country and in over 10 countries so we are off to a great start.”

Sawyer plays with robots: His team won second place in the national BattleBots competition. And he is helping to plan a TEDx in Coconut Grove this year. (TEDx is an independently organized event patterned after Technology Entertainment Design gatherings about ideas worth spreading.)

Sawyer has applied to top colleges and is waiting to hear. “I am considering anything from biology to political sciences to economics to engineering, so who knows what I’ll decide.”

Black is also waiting to hear from colleges. She wants to pursue theatre and possibly English or something in the sciences as well as take business classes.

Black stage-managed her first musical, Into the Woods, at Ransom Everglades Middle School: “It was a really big show and very successful in addition to being a lot of fun.”

She and Geiger are National Merit semifinalists, AP Scholars with Distinction and Silver Knight nominees. Black says entrepreneurship is something that interests her and has thought about opening a bakery later in life.

Geiger wants to study public policy or political science and economics at college, “but I am totally open to change my mind once I get there.”

Last year she attended the Student Diversity and Leadership Conference in Philadelphia, calling it “eye opening and meaningful.” She and her debate partner were semi-finalists at a national debate tournament.

Is entrepreneurship in the cards for Geiger? “Business startups seem really interesting so I am definitely open to the idea.”

Sunny Breakfast — Second Place

Ryan Breslow and Jonathan, Jacobo and Leon Lacs cooked up a winning plan called Sunny Breakfast, a delivery service for business districts.

At the time they won second place in the Challenge, they were juniors at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High and had no intention of starting that particular business idea in high school. But that doesn’t mean they have cooled to entrepreneurship — quite the contrary.

After the Challenge, Marc Abrams, president of A Marketing Force, read the story, located Breslow and offered him a summer internship. “He’s one of the smartest kids I ever met, well rounded and well mannered,” said Abrams, who added that Breslow did research, created websites, did search engine optimization work and directly worked with clients and vendors, access that interns normally don’t get.

See the article here:
For Challenge’s teen winners, the world is their oyster

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February 5, 2012 at 7:03 pm by Mr HomeBuilder
Category: Second Story Additions