Jumpstart Kansas – The Freedom to Jump

President Michael Schneider challenges incoming freshman to McPherson College to have the “freedom to jump”.  Recently I witnessed 12 groups of Kansas high school students put their inhibitions aside to take the leap.  A leap of faith that resulted in receipt of a $5,000 cash reward to Youth Entrepreneurs East High School Alumni, Colin Johnson and his partner Damien Gilbert.    

Presenting their plan via rolling Animoto visuals to the tune of OneRepublic’s Good Life the duo explained and sold their recycled steel bottle business to all in attendance.  They nailed the numbers, pinpointed the research and demonstrated the scalability.  The crowd was enraptured by the business idea and equally impressed with the poise, presentation style and confidence of its founders.  Apparently, so were the judges.  Walking away, check in tow, I heard the challenge from President Schneider as he congratulated the duo by exclaiming...”do this...really do this...make a bottle.”  They earned it and deserved to win.  Congratulations to SteelSalvation.  You’ve made us proud.  

Excitingly, Colin wasn’t the only YE student in the room.  Ideas abounded and students leapt.  Two other East High students, current YE students, Deshae Caldcleught and Natalie Lash competed with their tutoring café concept called “One Smart Cookie”. I tasted the healthy culinary creations they’ll be serving the students they tutor.  These girls have a great concept.  They, too, will go places.  

Checking in all the way from Wyandotte High School, last year’s YE Finals competitor Trina Durham wowed the judges with her social entrepreneurship concept proposing privatized foster care reform. “Why can you do this better than the current system?”, she was asked.  Simple, she replied, by shifting the burden of care from government to capable, passionate citizens.  Her plan, inclusive of economic incentives for her foster children, demonstrated her understanding of the true pathway to prosperity!  

By flashing photos of scantily clad, pregnant, intoxicated and drugged teen girls, our YE intern, Alexandria Webb, caught the attention of those in the room while presenting her venture, K.U.L.E girls.  Focusing on design, government and business, K.U.L.E girls is redefining success in the minds of young women.   Although K.U.L.E girls didn’t take home the social entrepreneur title, you wouldn’t have known it from the reaction in the room.  Even, kcteenlife.org, the group that won, found their way to Alex at the event’s end to exchange business cards and strategize future partnering!

 Finally, to talk about life after the leap, Kalene Smith, a Campus High School YE alum gave the students insight into next steps and expectations.  Kalene, an A.S.E Certified personal trainer, is operating a web-based training platform.  Her story took the audience from sitting in Kathy Shockley’s Campus High YE class to negotiating her own gym contract.  Additionally, she and her partner have written a recipe book and have sold over 100 copies in the last 4 months.  Her story resonated with the young competitors in the room who posed question after question about her journey.   

It was FUN!  What is better than spending your morning with such a group of impressive Kansas teen entrepreneurs?  Those of us in the room left feeling inspired and hopeful.  I, personally, left smiling.

To learn more about the Jumpstart Kansas program, check out http://blogs.mcpherson.edu/entrepreneurship/jump-start-kansas/

 - Kylie Stupka, Youth Entrepreneurs Executive Director

YE Alumni Kenon Thompson - Back to NYC for NFTE Award Ceremony

Check out Youth Entrepreneurs alumni Kenon Thompson's blog post "Back to NYC for Me" where he talks about his upcoming trip to New York City for the NFTE Global Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Awards. 

Congratulations and best of luck in all your future endeavors, Kenon!

Ideation Pt 2: Hunches, Research & Serendipity

In college, I knew a guy who had this latin phrase tattooed on his stomach: Audentes Fortuna Juvat. In Latin it means, "Fortune favors the daring." He was, and still is, a very interesting guy, but I could never get past this lingering thought of the risk involved. Maybe being daring is fun, but fortune may not always be in your favor.

Soon after finishing school and arriving among the working many, I was introduced to a similar phrase from Louis Pasteur, "Fortune favors the prepared mind." This made a bit more sense to me and somehow eased my concerns about being daring and not having good fortune. But, I had a very small amount of knowledge about Pasteur and his work in germ theory.

Then, serendipity struck. I was sitting at home on a lazy Saturday afternoon, watching one of my favorite networks, The Science Channel, when a program came on about Ignaz Semmelweis. Here is a link to a short clip.

Basically, it told the story about Semmelweis noticing a problem of mother & infant deaths in his obstetrics ward in the hospital in Vienna. Long story short, Semmelweis had a problem that was a "life or death" kind of problem and, through observation and research that followed a hunch, it led him to believe that the problem could be solved by forcing obstetricians to wash their hands. It seemed simple enough, at the time.

Semmelweis daringly published a book on his findings and the positive results he had documented by instituting his tactics in his hospital ward. Long story short, fortune did not favor him. He was ridiculed by the medical community, lost his job at the hospital in Vienna, had a nervous breakdown, was committed to an insane asylum and died soon after. A sad story, indeed.

Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed germ theory. The main difference is that Pasteur was a disciplined scientist and researcher. Because he was able to prove that microbes exist and they were the cause of infection, his ideas were widely accepted and revolutionized medicine almost over night. His breakthroughs raised the quality of life for all of us, even 250 years later.

You might be wondering to yourself, "Jonny B, what does this have to do with ideation?"

Referring back to my first post on ideation, I talked bout the first source of opportunity being problems. Solve a problem with less resources and you have created value. The bigger the problem solved, the greater the value to society, the greater the return to the entrepreneur.

Semmelweis and Pasteur weren't so much interested in being entrepreneurs. But, they paved the way for the mutli-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry that soon followed. And, if you watched the short video above, hopefully you are drawing some of your own conclusions about people with hunches and ideas. I'll close with this: What would have happened if Semmelweis & Pasteur had been "Friends" on Facebook?



Thanks for reading.

Jon Bachura
Director of Curriculum & Training
Youth Entrepreneurs

Dare to Dream

I recently read a poster that proclaimed, “A dream is just a dream until you ACT upon it”.  This struck home with me and provoked me to think about dreams I had; dreams that for some reason or another never came true.   Yes, this is a part of life and I’m not the only one who hasn’t fulfilled all of my dreams, but I wonder what could’ve been, had I been inspired to act upon them; if someone had DARED me to dream.  What if someone dared you to dream as a youngster? 

Youth Entrepreneurs (YE) took on the challenge of encouraging our students to not let their dreams pass them by.  Over the course of two days, we DARED 925 high school students to turn their dreams into reality.  YE hosted workshops that were charged with energy and inspiration.  Not only were new friendships formed among students who never would’ve otherwise met, but the day was full of practical learning scenarios that could be transferred into their daily lives.  In the words of one YE student, the day was ‘DOPE’.

Buy low, sell high; a cornerstone concept in business.  This is what the Youth Entrepreneur students learned in one of their breakout sessions called ‘Fuel Frenzy’.  During this activity, half of the students were buying fuel while the other half were selling it.  The goal was for individuals from one group to strike deals with the opposing group and make a profit; all the while learning the art of negotiation.  What wonderful knowledge and skills to acquire at such a young age!

Do you ever wish you would’ve learned about personal finance while you were a teenager so that you could have avoided foolish money decisions as an adult?  Hopefully none of the YE students say that later down the road because they had the opportunity to participate in the ‘Reality Game’.  In this session, students were randomly assigned jobs ranging from those that required college level degrees to jobs that paid on an hourly basis.  Dependent on their monthly income, they had to navigate through a series of life tables (housing, automobile, utilities, groceries, child care, student loans, etc.) and determine what they could afford.  The students quickly learned some keys to having disposable income each month are to have a well paying/stable job, a driving record free of tickets, accidents and DUI’s, a low debt to income ratio and a good credit score to boot.  It was a great crash course in how making wise decisions as a young adult can lead to a financially stable future.

During an etiquette luncheon, the students learned tips on what to do at a business lunch/dinner.  Everything from which fork to use, to what to do if you need to spit your gum out, to appropriate conversation starters and which side of your chair to enter and exit from were discussed.  Eating is a topic these teenagers didn’t think they needed a lesson on, but as one student stated, “I really need to know the importance of fine dining for business dinners and just nice occasions”.  I think it’s safe to say we met her expectations.

To end the day, national inspirational speaker, Eric Anderson: The Magician with a Message spoke to the students.  He spoke to them about rising above any occasion.  Whether you feel on top of the world because you have a job and girlfriend or you’re feeling low because you are broke and jobless, you have to find a way to deal with the cards you were dealt, be productive and stay positive.   In between his messages, he wove in magic tricks that left us all wondering how he did it!

It was a remarkable two days that we had the privilege of sharing with 900+ teenagers.  It was hard not to walk away feeling inspired to follow your heart and turn your dreams into reality.  With that, I DARE you to DREAM.

- Priscilla McInnes, Northeast Region Director 

Dare to Dream was sponsored by: 

 

WindRiver Grain

Maupin's Truck Parts