TEENS
ON TASK
URBAN PULSE
DIRECT
Sports, food, music — the winners of the Business
Plan Challenge High School Track came up with
innovative business ideas for all these necessities
of life.
Cole Press and Louis Segall, who were seniors at Ransom
Everglades last year, said their winning business idea was born out
of frustration: They were tired of going to multiple websites and
blogs to keep up with their favorite teams. Every sports fan should
have an app that personally curates news, views, stats and video
clips, they figured, delivering only the information on the teams
and players that the fan cares about. Their first place-winning
plan, called Team Beam, faced steep competition — even from
more than a dozen of their own classmates in Jennifer Nero’s
AP macro/micro economics class at Ransom who entered the
contest. Cole is now attending the University of Chicago, majoring
in history. Segall is now at MIT majoring in math and economics
and minoring in physics.
Miami Edison Senior High student Nelysa Ventura was only 15
when she cooked up a winning business idea and won second
place in the Business Plan Challenge High School Track. Her plan:
a cookbook and website for children for baking up healthy
desserts that also teaches math and reading. She said she saw
a need for parents and their children to do things together; her
cookbook would promote quality bonding time. She has created
a Facebook page for Cupcake 1+2=3 so she can keep in contact
with her customers. “I am also working on a Blog page, and in
the near future, I plan to create a website where I can post prerecorded demonstrations and do live demos via a webcam,” she
said.Nelysa, now a junior, is the vice president of Edison’s Future
Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter and a member of the
eClub (Entrepreneurship Club). Series of Innovation.
Carlos Cruz-Taura believed emerging artists could benefit from
a vibrant online community to help them promote themselves,
make money and “spread the arts.” He also believed in the need
for a trusted central place where event hosts and organizations
could book local talent Carlos should know — he’s a musician.
The cellist at New World School of the Arts won third place for
his plan, called Music Connection, in the Miami Herald Business
Plan Challenge High School track last year. Now a senior at New
World, Carlos is president of the Future Business Leaders of America
school chapter and is in a leadership development program for
the school’s science department.
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