One by one four groups of eager entrepreneurs shared their business plans.
“As an aspiring entrepreneur in my future I learned that each department has a job and I learned to respect each department and the process,” one student said.
It was a part of the US Virgin Islands Junior Achievements’ competition.
It took place Sunday in St. Thomas when each group presented a detailed business idea, their staffing, ways to advertise and make money.
“All together we learned how to run a business and how to operate it on our own,” another said.
Organizers of the event and supporters of the local Junior Achievement group said these are skills these students will use forever.
“Knowing kind of what their experience has been over the last 10 weeks and knowing all they had to accomplish and overcome I was very impressed with the level of presentations that we saw today,” Denelle Baptiste, Executive Diretor of Junior Achievement of the Virgin Islands said.
The three judges had to the tough job of naming the winner of the competition after hearing their presentations and questioning them on their models.
“Looking at all of these presentations all of these teams did present very well everyone was very articulate and they worked together as a team as you can tell. I am glad they all identified their challenges and lessons learned because it is all a part of being an entrepreneur for the future,” Artra Watlington-Francis one of the judges said.
While they did have to name one winner the judges said all of the students won.
For these high school students the tools they learned from this experience go beyond just today.
For gradutes it sets them up for their future.
“It helps me not only learn it in the book but see how it is in real life because in this whole process I’ve learned a lot about business in general,” Patrick Hendrikson a Gifft Hill School Graduate said.
A group of business leaders you’re sure to be seeing taking over the world, soon enough.
For more information on Junior Achievement Virgin Islands go to https://jausvi.org.
