Lakota Student Entrepreneurs Win Seed Money for their Businesses
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Lakota Student Entrepreneurs Win Seed Money for their Businesses
Entrepreneurship students in the INCubatoredu@Lakota program came together on April 18 for the third annual pitch night competition. Lakota East and West students spend the academic year in the Incubator course conceptualizing, building, and bringing to life business proposals that they then pitch to judges for investment dollars.
The four teams who pitched their business ideas were selected to present by students in the second year entrepreneurship course, ACCELeratoredu. The presenting teams were Fast Tap, No Zero Days, Poseidon and SipDrip. Each group was mentored by local industry partners to assist them throughout the year.
"All of the student pitches were outstanding this year,” says Katie Bauer, district Strategic Partnerships Coordinator. “These students really pulled out all the stops and shared outstanding visual presentations and products. Poseidon even partnered with a local company to formulate and can a sample product of their energy drink. How awesome is that!?”
The INCubatoredu program, led by teacher Kevin Keen, provides students the entrepreneurial concepts needed to ideate and build a business in the format of their choosing. Students can create a product, app, service or anything they feel would best serve a potential client base.
Andrew Wheatley, Director of 7-12 Curriculum says of the program, “The entrepreneurship mentality translates into all industries and cultivating this way of thinking is so important for our students.” This wildly creative course (brought to the district from Uncharted Learning) allows students to identify and truly pursue their passions, setting them up for success in their future.
The top winner of the 2023 pitch night was No Zero Days; the group was awarded $1,000 for their nut and sugar free protein bite product. The Fast Tap group, who created an idea for a key card for students to unlock their lockers, was awarded $500. These funds were donated by program partners for the teams to use as seed money to start their businesses.
Congratulations to No Zero Days, Fast Tap and all of the other student businesses who were created this school year.