Indy high school students pitch business ideas
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More than two dozen Indianapolis Public Schools high school students pitched their business ideas Friday as part of the BOSS Summer Entrepreneurship camp at IUPUI. The students spent the week learning about entrepreneurship from professors at the IU Kelley School of Business and staff from the IUPUI Office of Community Engagement.
The participating students represented George Washington, Crispus Attucks, Arsenal Tech and Shortridge high schools, and received a weekly salary, which they could use to invest in their first business.
Theresa Bennett, assistant vice chancellor of the Office of Community Engagement, told Inside INdiana Business many of the participants already had some kind of business going, but organizers also wanted to focus on having the students think about being the change in their community.
“When they look around and they don’t see a barbershop, they don’t see a restaurant, they don’t see the kinds of things they need, they can be the person to come in and make that happen,” Bennett said.
“BOSS” stands for Business Opportunities for Self Starters. The program was launched in 2019, and Bennett said the number one skill they aim to teach the students is confidence.
“They’ve got the ideas. They know what they can do. They just haven’t always been encouraged to do it,” she said. “But there is a knowledge base too. So we spend a lot of time talking about doing research, looking at who competitors might be, thinking a little bit harder about how you take that idea from concept to reality. And then I think the last thing that we spend our time on is presentation of yourself, your brand, everything.”
The pitch contest came with a $100 cash prize for first place, followed by $75 for second and $50 for third. The 2023 winners are:
- First place: Katherine Bautista for the “Charm & Shine, The Touch You Need”
- Second place: Verenice Romero & Julissa Zuniga for “Sweet Delights”
- Third place: Isabella Ochoa Vargas, for “Shampoo Kitty Angel”
The common thread among all of the participants, according to Bennett, was the creativity. She said she was greatly encouraged by the ideas the students had.
“They took to heart that idea of what they could do in their neighborhoods. So, we have restaurants. We have persons who are thinking a little bit harder about having fresh and good foods in their neighborhoods. We have people who are thinking about how they could use a business to give back to a nonprofit, through the business, all kinds of opportunities.”