MET School to Award $5K to Young Entrepreneurs

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Saturday, March 05, 2011

GoLocalProv Features Team

It's time for entrepreneurs to step up for entrepreneurs.

Even if they're in high school.

The Met Center for Entrepreneurship will present its Business Plan Competition on Wednesday, March 23rd from 10 am to 12 pm at The Met’s Public Street campus in the Media and Arts Center, Entrepreneurship Room.

The students of Entrepreneurship-360 (E360) have immersed themselves in the world of business, identified their unique business idea, formulated the ROI (return on investment) and now it is the real deal. Students presented in-class and finalists from class will present on March 23rd with the opportunity to be invested up to $5,000 in funds. Investors, judges, community members and these talented Met high school student entrepreneurs will all gather for the Center for Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition.

Capturing local creativity

Jodie Woodruff, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship describes the programs as "an engaging avenue to capture the creativity and enthusiasm of students in an effort to build, math and financial literacy skills, workforce development skills and life skills through something most students identify with; their interests and making money."

"This concept has been tested and proven through three-year pilot programs at The Met," Woodruff said. "The new Center will allow us to take this work to the next level, reach out to the community, and offer students the opportunity to learn and operate a business.”

Big Picture Soda, one of the student run E360 businesses, will also present a $1,000 donation to the Met Dollars for Scholars Fund at the beginning of the event.

The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, a Big Picture Learning School, uses a learning model embedded in the philosophy of supporting "one student at a time" through real world learning that focuses on students’ passions and interests.

The Met's Entrepreneur 360 (E360) course is a 60-hour program for students supported by NFTE (National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship) during which they learn about concepts and skills to create and design a business and then as a culminating piece, write a business plan.