Georgia Southern’s Youth Leadership Program
For the past two summers, Georgia Southern University’s Continuing Education’s Youth College has offered a week-long Youth Leadership Program for rising seventh, eighth, and ninth graders. This year’s program had a theme of entrepreneurship. The children enjoyed a week of learning about the different steps involved in the creation of an innovative product. The students were split into groups of two, and challenged to come up with a unique product or service not available in stores now. They would then present their product to their families and a panel of judges at a tradeshow at the end of the week. The children embraced the experience and brought much enthusiasm.
Throughout the week, other smaller projects were added to the children’s original challenge. One project came on Tuesday when a group of entrepreneurs visited with the children. The entrepreneurs sat down with each group individually and allowed the students to gain feedback on their ideas. The entrepreneurs and the children enjoyed the one-on-one time, and the children carefully considered each of the entrepreneurs’ suggestions. Another project came as the children were assigned to create a commercial to go along with their product. After getting past the fear of the camera, the kids were able to develop catchy tunes and slogans for their commercials!
At the end of the week, the young entrepreneurs dressed up in business attire and presented their final products along with a tri-board, business cards, flyers and commercials to judges. The finished products for the competition included the following: a massaging backpack, tablets that transformed water into soft drinks, fishing line that did not tangle, a retracting sunshade for car windshields and a beach umbrella with a built in fan and mister. After careful consideration the judges chose the M-Pack (massaging backpack as the winner). Nevertheless, all the children appeared to have won something. Each and every one of them learned just how creative and capable they truly were.
Judges of the event: Dr. Todd Deal, Dr. Nick Debonis, and Samantha Monteagudo
Entrepreneur volunteers: Lesley Francis, Malcolm Howard, Lynn Lilly, Marcus Howard, Brian Howard
written by: Kristina McCullum
edited by: Natalie Demarko
[slideshow]Posted in Events, Teaching and Learning