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Students show off their entrepreneurship skills at YSU
YOUNGSTOWN
Young entrepreneurs were showered with thousands of dollars – fake dollars – by mock investors as part of the Junior Achievement of Mahoning Valley’s Innovation Challenge event at Youngstown State University’s Williamson College of Business Administration.
Teams of students from five city schools – East High, Martin Luther King Elementary School, Volney Rogers Middle School, Williamson Elementary School and William Holmes McGuffey Elementary – spent Tuesday making business pitches to mock investors and participating in workshops led by local business leaders.
During part of the event, the students showed off their product ideas using poster boards in setting similar to a trade show, with mock investors wandering the floor, talking to the students and doling out fake investment money to the products they found most impressive.
The challenge was the culmination of a 12-week after-school course undertaken by the students that focused on entrepreneurship. The course dealt with idea development, marketing, advertising and building a client base, among other topics.
With the coursework behind them, the students were challenged to come up with product or service ideas, which they then pitched to mock investors – portrayed by a group of business leaders from around the Mahoning Valley who were volunteering their time – in an effort to win prizes for the best product ideas.
The ideas developed by students ranged from cars specially made for individuals with disabilities to art studios and cellphone cases.
One team of students – Melvin Torres, 12, Juanito Fornore, 11, and Alex Green, 11, all from MLK Elementary – developed an idea for a video game called “Johnny Blaze” about a hero with a watch that lets him travel back in time.
Marissa Devantier, program coordinator for Junior Achievement of the Mahoning Valley, said more than 60 students were at the event and praised the community’s support of the program.
“For some of these students, this is the first time learning about business,” Devantier said. “It’s exciting for them to have conversations with adults from the business world.”
The mock investors included Julie Smith and Jim Cossler from the Youngstown Business Incubator; Elijah Stambaugh, a member of the board of Junior Achievement and owner of Illuminate Education based out of the YBI; Ryan Pastore of PNC Bank; and Chaney Nezbeth of the YSU Foundation, among others. In all, 20 mock investors participated.