Kent Trumbull Enactus team takes honors at event

Staff report

Champion

The Kent State University at Trumbull Enactus team was named a regional champion at the Enactus United States Regional Competition last weekend in Chicago.

The event is one of 10 regional competitions staged across the country during March and April.

“With over 75 other universities competing in Chicago alone, our team was nervous, but we felt really confident about the projects we were presenting. We came ready to win,“ said Antone Klecha, co-president of Kent State Trumbull’s Enactus team.

The Kent Trumbull team is one of more than 500 Enactus programs across the U.S. Students use business concepts to develop community outreach projects, transform lives and shape a more sustainable world.

Kent Trumbull’s Enactus team is comprised of five students including freshmen Klecha and Michael Jajcinovic, junior Annette Schick and seniors Luke Backo and Kira Jackson. The team is guided by Susan Emens, associate professor, Business Management & Related Technologies and Jacob Roope, adviser, Enrollment Management and Student Services.

In the 2012-13 academic year, the team organized two projects in Trumbull County. The first was a series of job-readiness workshops, with the goal of empowering students from Warren’s Inspiring Minds program to be better prepared for higher education and employment opportunities.

The team also presented its Flash 2.0 project, which focused on developing applications for organizations including Kent Trumbull, the Warren Township Fire Department and Sam’s Club of Boardman to reduce the amount of paper used to print daily reports. The project called for the creation of a smartphone application that could convert paper- intensive reports to a paperless format, thereby saving environmental resources and money.

In the case of Sam’s Club, it was projected that a savings of more than $30,000 annually could be realized through the conversion of one of their internal reports.

“The projects we select each year are ones that not only have a business focus, but are also ones that can impact the lives of others and bring about a sustainable change,” added Jackson, Enactus team co-president.

The culmination of the Enactus program is an annual series of competitions that provide a showcase for teams to present the results of their projects and be evaluated by business leaders. Teams first compete at the regional and national levels, then at the international level when the national champion teams from each country meet at the Enactus World Cup, Sept. 29-Oct. 1, in Cancun, Mexico.

As an Enactus U.S. Regional Champion, Kent Trumbull’s Enactus team advances to the 2013 Enactus U.S. National Exposition which will be May 21-23 in Kansas City, Mo.