Overview
During the 2023-2024 academic year, NetWork Kansas E-Communities and non E-Communities held 58 local level youth entrepreneurship competitions for more than 1,150 students as part of the Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge Series, culminating in a statewide championship. During the 2024-2025 school year, communities have the opportunity to host local level entrepreneurship competitions and submit their event to be part of the “Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge Series” culminating in a statewide youth entrepreneurship competition, the Kansas Entrepreneurship Challenge (KEC), April 17, 2025. Local entrepreneurship competitions must meet certain guidelines in order to qualify as part of the Series and to be eligible to use E-Community funds to pay for part or all of the competition.
What is a Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge?
Communities host locally-organized events (at the county, city, school, or classroom level) that bring students together for the purpose of a hands-on entrepreneurship experience. Typically, local entrepreneurship competitions (often called “e-fairs”) involve students preparing a written business plan or executive summary, a “tradeshow booth” (similar to a science fair tabletop display), and a pitch or presentation. Then, on a given day, students compete against one another in teams or individually. Students’ work is judged by local entrepreneurs, resource partners, mentors, or other adults. Most successful events are organized through a teacher or school as a classroom project or extracurricular activity, but other groups can be successful at organizing an event as well.
Important Elements
- A written executive summary
- Access to resources, like a teacher or other education
- A 4–minute presentation, and may also include an additional oral component of some sort – pitch, interview and/or a tradeshow
- Competitive process by which students’ work is evaluated/scored
- Judges – usually members of the community
- Awards or prizes (whether it’s a 1st place certificate or a cash award; some token for participation)
Other Ideas
- Invite other students or the community at large to visit the tradeshow
- Invite an entrepreneurship guest speaker to talk to students and/or others
- Seek business owners to mentor students
- Invite businesses to sponsor the event
Expectations of the Host
- Decide the format and other parameters of the event (who, when, where, etc.)
- Find a mentor to help and decide how much education you can do on the topic of entrepreneurship
- Create or find applicable forms (judging forms, business plan outline, etc.)
- Decide your budget and how to fund the event (Will there be lunch? Awards? Other expenses?)
- Decide how to get students to participate
- Promote the event! Invite judges to participate and invite students, businesses, and others to attend
- Coordinate the event (print documents, organize schedule, find a speaker, etc.)
- Run the event on the day of (give instructions, keep schedule on time, tally scores, give awards, etc.)
- Send thank you notes and write articles for newsletters, newspapers, etc.
- Follow instructions from NetWork Kansas to coordinate participation at the state level