Aimed at exposing BYU-Hawaii students to the opportunities available through entrepreneurship, the annual Business Plan Competition and Entrepreneurship Conference, hosted by the Willes Center for International Entrepreneurship (CIE), was a success, according to students who were involved.
The entire event occupied the better part of three days, with sessions held Wednesday, March 15 to Friday, March 17. Various entrepreneurs from around the world came to offer opinions and share their experiences with entrepreneurship on various panels and during lectures.
Shaun Alkema, majoring in International Business Management, attended every session offered at the conference, and said, "One of the best things was seeing the success of regular people. Seeing them up there and knowing that normal people can be successful, too."
The culmination of the conference was the Business Plan competition, held Friday afternoon, won by students Jeremy [pictured at upper left] and Rebecca Brewer and Leslie Thompson, who said they "entered the competition because we have this dream to build a school and we wanted to learn the business side of things, and we figured this was a good way to learn."
They presented a plan for the Merida English Academy (MEA), a school that will teach English to those in the Merida, Mexico area. "We see that English will benefit the lives of people we love. It will allow them to get better jobs."
Both Jeremy and Rebecca are TESOL majors who served Spanish-speaking missions, and they have been saving for the school since they started dating, eight years ago. They have now added the $5,000 that they won to their investment and said they hope to receive more from investors like Thompson. Although Thompson was a fellow team member, the Brewers were grateful for her support, saying, "None of this would be possible without our financial helper, Leslie Thompson, who will also be a partner and financial investor in the actual school."
Another student involved in the background was Christina (Beana) Hathaway, a student employee at the CIE. Hathaway's responsibilities, she said, include coordinating the weekly Entrepreneurship Lecture Series, but the bulk of her time has been spent putting together the conference and competition.
In regards to the conference, Hathaway said, "that for the most part, everything went well. There are a few weaknesses where I can see that things could improve." She said that the CIE is always looking for support from all of the schools and faculty and added, "business isn't just for business majors, anybody can be an entrepreneur."
Both Hathaway and Alkema agreed that in the future, they would like to see each of the visiting entrepreneurs have their own hour-long session to share details of their own personal experiences with entrepreneurship. As Alkema put it, "single them out, and let them give specific stories in how they gained success in each individual area."
Students who had the desire to enter the competition submitted applications to the CIE, and with the help of SIFE they were able to attend workshops to learn more about entrepreneurship. Those who submitted business plans were assigned to a mentor from the group of visiting entrepreneurs. For the Brewers, this was one of the activities that made their success possible. "We liked all the workshops we were able to attend and the help from outside entrepreneurs that came.... None of this would have been possible without them."
Of the 40 student teams that entered the competition, 18 submitted business plans. Of those teams, 12 were selected as finalists. From there, six teams entered the final leg of the competition, and the other six were able to compete in the Elevator Pitch Competition, for an instant business investment of up to $900. According to Chuck Stratton, a specialist at the CIE, the caliber of the teams and plans this year were better than the rest. Before the competition, he said, "because of all the mentoring we have provided, they are the best plans we have seen. It will make judging hard, but more fun because they are a higher quality."
Along with the CIE, a campus organization called Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) , headed by Al Doan, a student in Information Systems and Political Science, was involved in many of the events leading up to the competition and the Elevator Pitch part of the competition.
According to Doan, SIFE was responsible for pairing the competitors with individual entrepreneurs, as well as promoting the conference and competition on campus. While Doan was not directly involved with the Business Plan competition, his experiences with the conference "got me thinking about the different ideas that I have for entrepreneurship, as well as the school and the opportunities [for entrepreneurship] that we have on campus."
— Photos by Ian Nitta: (upper left) Jeremy Brewer explains his team's plan to establish an English language school in Mexico; (lower left) Benson Massey of India pitches a proposal to start a secure transportation company for call center workers in his home country.