Cape Cod students win entrepreneurship contest with business ideas

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BARNSTABLE — Youthful men and women can master a lot at Barnstable Substantial Faculty: how to fix an algebra dilemma, how to examine DNA code and how to make sense out of literary classics. Some learners are even discovering what it will take to get started a company.

In a competition similar to TV’s “Shark Tank” — where entrepreneurs try to influence a panel of tycoons to devote in their idea — college students recently pitched their enterprise concepts to a panel of judges.

Rising from the pack on June 14 ended up Nicholas Pouliot and Dominic Ford, who gained prizes at a New England semi-remaining opposition for youthful business people.

The competition was sponsored by the Community for Instructing Entrepreneurship, or NFTE, a world wide nonprofit organization that gives entrepreneurship training to middle and significant college students.

Barnstable High School students Nicholas Pouliot, left, and Dominic Ford won second and third place, respectively, in the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship New England Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in Boston on June 14, 2022. Pouliot will advance to NFTE’s National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in New York this fall, where he will compete against students from across the country

What had been the Barnstable students’ strategies?

Pouliot arrived up with options for a biodegradable, reusable marker for instructors to use in lecture rooms.

The strategy for “Pouliot’s Preservation” came to him right after noticing how quite a few markers academics threw away. The marker would have a unique cap and again style and design so the marker could be refurbished, he said.

Pouliot won $1,000 and a chance to compete in a countrywide NFTE competitiveness to be held in New York Metropolis in October.

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Ford received $500 for his strategy for a cellular grooming organization, “Limitless Grooming.”

He came up with the plan when the pandemic hit. With firms closed and men and women not able to get so several points completed, he imagined the Cape would be a ideal sector. Quite a few Cape people are older and retired, so bringing his grooming business enterprise to them seemed like a superior idea.

Barnstable and Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

This marks the 3rd yr Barnstable Substantial Faculty has participated in NFTE competitions. The university teamed up with NFTE just after hunting for strategies to implement far more rigor into its Pathways plans, according to small business teacher Justin Ogilvie.

“We’ve been blown absent by them (NFTE),” he stated.

The university operates a calendar year-long training course via NFTE. Sixty pupils in a few sections accomplished the program this 12 months. Twelve of them moved on to NFTE’s regional quarter-remaining spherical. 5 college students went to the semi-finals. Two, Pouliot and Ford, went to the regional finals in Boston.

“It’s a wonderful piece of the enterprise pathway,” Ogilvie reported. “It gives young ones an opportunity.”

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And it does so a great deal much more, mentioned Monice Maurice, Barnstable’s direct trainer with NFTE.

“The classes are more than just for young ones who want to be business owners,” she explained.

It’s about creating a mindset that acknowledges chance, and is relaxed with chance, she reported. She termed those people traits important as the location and region move into an overall economy that is global.

“They (college students) are expected to be intrapreneurs in the corporations they get the job done for,” she mentioned. “We want to acquire all those types of techniques that they can transfer in any route.”

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How to instruct – and develop – that kind of attitude is the magic question, Maurice said. The mindset piece of the curriculum is in just about every class, she reported. With every concept taught, students master to make a enterprise. They have to make a decision what variety of small business they want – does it supply merchandise, or does it produce products and services? As they study the concepts, they implement them to their organization concepts.

Some college students realize beginning their own small business is not for them.

What is future for Pouliot, Ford?

Pouliot and Ford built it as a result of a quarter-remaining level of competition that experienced 34 students and a semi-remaining level of competition versus 16 college students. They joined 1 other student for the national competitors. Daisha Jackson, a scholar from Providence, RI, won to start with spot and $2,500 for “Yoga for All.” She will head to the NFTE nationwide competitiveness in October.

Volunteer judges from throughout the country reviewed student pitches and watched films of their presentations, in accordance to Joanne Lessner, controlling director for Lambert, the public relations company symbolizing the NFTE.

The judges integrated entrepreneurs and company men and women, such as employees users of NFTE sponsor companies.

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Pouliot options to do additional research and refine his undertaking just before the up coming levels of competition. He’d like to make his presentation improved, and if probable, have a prototype ready. A agent from Hasbro spoke with him immediately after his pitch in Boston. He’s made other contacts, Pouliot stated. Though his heat-up presentation did not go effortlessly, he felt assured presenting to the judges.

Ford strategies to get ready, too, because there is a likelihood he could enter the nationwide competition if a scholar finalist drops out. His takeaway from the practical experience: a good deal goes into starting up a company.

For Ogilvie, one of the most significant lessons is that a 15-12 months-old does not want to really feel it is impossible to get a company off the floor.

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“Young people are altering the entire world,” J.D. LaRock, CEO of NFTE, wrote in an e-mail. “Each youthful entrepreneur’s innovative idea signifies an prospect to handle vital challenges facing communities about the globe.”

The NFTE national competitors will be held in New York City in mid-October. The day, time and site have not nonetheless been introduced.