High school entrepreneurs face off at U of M

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/07/2018 (2955 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s 7:30 in the morning. May 25.

Students have been planning this day for two to three months.

Cars pull up one-by-one on Freedman Crescent. Some come from Birtle, Portage la Prairie, and Niverville. Most are from Winnipeg.

Teams of high school students pull crates and bags from car trunks and lug pieces into the Drake Centre at the University of Manitoba.

They climb two flights of stairs with their gear to the third floor.

Some turn to the right, where they assemble trade show booths, many with custom-made wooden frames, ornate counters, pop-ups, and table runners.

A girl dressed in a white blouse, black skirt and pumps leans on a stairwell banister, reciting text from a notebook, focused and intense.

Immediately left of the stairs, a young man adjusts his friend’s tie.

Further left is a team of students sitting in a haphazard circle, listening, organizing, finalizing.

The hallway curves, revealing three tables with students gesturing passionately, immersed in animated dialogue.

They didn’t look like conventional high school student — boys in dress shirts, ties and dress shoes, some sporting suits; girls in professional-looking skirts, blouses, dresses, and the occasional jacket. It all seems very professional.

They have gathered at the University of Manitoba’s Stu Clark Centre to face off in the annual Manitoba High School New Venture Championships, vying for a top prize of $2,000 scholarships in the biz plan competition and $500 cash awards in the pitch, logo, and trade show competitions.

It doesn’t get more real life or nerve-wracking than this gig — two months of planning down to one or two pitches.

Amy Briscoe from the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship organizes the event “to encourage high school students to approach business, new venture, and investment opportunities in both critical and creative ways… and to connect like-minded students.”

Some 100 students from 22 schools presented, pitched, explained, and sold products and services to 22 business professionals who judged the winners in the four categories.

When the dust settled, the most prestigious category, the biz plan, was captured by St. Paul’s High School’s Beyond VR, an online public speaking program with VR capabilities.

Nelson McIntyre Collegiate earned second place with Heart, hand-crafted laminated hardwood hearts and Manitoba shapes embedded with rare earth magnets to declutter or capture small metal objects.

Third place was Belle Visage from Portage la Prairie Collegiate, an all-natural coconut oil and baking soda moisturizer.  

Darren Fast, director of technology transfer at the University of Manitoba and biz plan judge, said the event gives students “a chance to practise real world skills — pitching ideas, developing prototypes, making sales, and making difficult choices with limited resources.”

Nelson McIntyre Collegiate also finished second in the trade show competition.

To learn more, google ‘Manitoba High School New Venture Championships’.

Adriano Magnifico is a community correspondent for St. Boniface. You can contact him at amagnif@mymts.net