Page 10 - Florida Sentinel 2-26-21

Feature
Annual Teen Business Challenge Planned
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
For several years, the Com- puter Mentors Group has served as host of the Annual Teen Busi- ness Challenge. This year, the event will be held during the weekend of March 19th through March 21st.
Ralph Smith, Executive Director and CEO of Computer
Mentors Group is inviting teenagers who would like to par- ticipate in the competition to contact him. The event is being sponsored by Connectwise, Citi, and Immertec.
For this first time as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event will be hosted virtually as an online event this year. The focus is on Virtual Reality Busi- ness Ideas. The event will fea-
ture 20 teens, learning entrepre- neurship and developing busi- ness ideas as a competition.
The Teen Business Chal- lenge (TBC) is an annual event that gives teens a great way to explore entrepreneurship in a weekend filled with fun, learn- ing, exploring, and hard work. High-school-aged teens, 14 through 18 years of age, and liv- ing in Hillsborough County are
qualified to apply.
Twenty teens will be selected
and placed into teams of five (5) which will compete. The event kicks off on that Friday evening and includes several challenges over the course of the weekend, with the final “The Pitch” Chal- lenge being judged by a panel of “Angel Investor” volunteers.
Teens will be rewarded for their efforts. All teens will re- ceive a VR Headset and a Grub- Hub gift card just for participating. All five (5) mem- bers of the winning team will also receive their choice of a Mi- crosoft Surface Pro laptop or an Oculus Rift VR Headset kit.
Teen Business Competition is not only about the teens cre- ating businesses. It is about ac- quiring the skills needed to be successful in anything they choose to do. The learning out- comes revolve around three core competencies – collaboration, creative thinking and communi- cation – rooted in the five chal- lenges:
“The Citi Big Idea” Chal- lenge – Creative Problem Solv- ing;
“The Citi Biz Model”
RALPH SMITH Executive Director, CEO of Computer Mentors
Challenge – Concept Modeling;
“The Connectwise Mar- keting” Challenge – Engaging the Market;
“The Connectwise MVP”
Challenge – Product Modeling; and
“The Pitch” – Organizing Ideas and Communicating Clearly.
Teens will also be assisted by more than 55 volunteers, in- cluding subject matter experts (SME’s), coaches, VR consult- ants, and judges. Most of the volunteers are from our spon- soring agencies, but all adult volunteers are welcome to apply.
For more information or to sign up as a participant or vol- unteer, people should visit the Computer Mentors website at www.computermentors.org/t bc2021/.
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