Riley County high-school-age students gathered at Manhattan High School Wednesday to compete in the fifth annual Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge.
The event gave local students an opportunity to show off their business ideas and presentation skills to a panel of judges.
“I kind of liken it to Shark Tank for high-school-age students,” John Jobe, K-State Research and Extension agent, said. “Winners can actually take home some prize money.”
Cash prizes were awarded to the top-three placers and a “People’s Choice Trade Show Award.”
Participants were judged on their executive summary/business plan, formal presentation and trade-show presentation.
MHS sophomores Juan Avila and Luke Brickei teamed up to deliver a business pitch based on their love for fishing and wanting to make their hobby into a more environmentally friendly experience.
“Whenever we fish, there’s a lot of plastic in the water, so we go out and snag a lot of plastic but we don’t know what to do with it,” Avila said. “So we came up with an idea of recycling our fishing lures and making new ones out of it.”
Brickei says their idea also gets other fishers involved.
“When people go fishing, they usually ware out their jigs or old lures and they throw them in the water,” Brickei said. “But now, with our bins around fishing spots, they can put them in there or bring them to the store for store credit.”
MHS sophomore Paige Chauncey, who presented with sophomore Tanner Dowling, says their pitch was inspired by their parents.
“We are a house-renovating and flipping company called Rapid Realty Flips,” Chauncey said. “We go the inspiration because both of our parents do construction and house flipping themselves and are entrepreneurs.”
This year’s competition was put on due in part to the efforts of the Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce, Network Kansas and Spark.
Daryn Soldan, YEC judge, former MHS student and current Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce economic development director, says the the event provides a unique opportunity for local students to develop business skills.
“I went to high school in this building and we had great teachers and great programs, but we didn’t necessarily have programs like this then,” Soldan said. “I think that’s one of the great things now, is that entrepreneurship is something that, if a student chooses to pursue or to study [it], they have that opportunity at the high-school level or the college level and beyond.”
He also says the program not only benefits the students, but the local business community as well.
“So many of our major employers started as small businesses, often times by relatively young people who made it in college or just out of college and they have grown,” Soldan said.
The top three placers in the competition will be eligible to take part in the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge in April.
