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>> Jim Schenke: Dozens of high school students
from 13 Indiana counties spent a week at Purdue University
for the inaugural Purdue Research Park
Entrepreneurship Academy.
During the Academy, students toured companies at the park
and learned from real life entrepreneurs
and business leader how to identify opportunities,
create business concepts and plans, determine budgets,
develop marketing plans, and obtain financing.
Those new skills were all put to the test when teams had
to pitch their plans to mock, would-be financiers
like Banker William Connors.
>>William Connors: Well, there several of them
that you could see that were, weren't sales people.
There were some that answered tough technical questions.
There was one group that actually built their own website
to highlight their business, so, there's probably four, five,
six or seven different careers
that these kids could look forward to.
>> Jim Schenke: Fellow contest judge Susan Davis was impressed
with how quickly the students embraced new technological
and business concepts.
>>Susan Davis: You could really see them rise to the top,
when it came to that, not only in terms of their presentation,
and they have excellent oral communication skills,
but also their willingness to go out and really find out more
about topics like financial projections, exit strategies,
those aren't the typical high concepts, and so they really had
to go out and learn more about being an entrepreneur.
>> Jim Schenke: Student teams competed
for college tuition vouchers ranging
up to 500 dollars per person.
Research Park Vice President Greg Deeson borrowed
from the words of Teddy Roosevelt
to say it takes guts to compete.
>>Greg Deeson: It takes a lot of, sometimes, pushing down fear
and it takes a lot of courage.
Everyone here has done a marvelous job
and I've been impressed with all of the progress that's made
that really competing and being in the middle of that as opposed
to on the sidelines is what this is about.
>> Jim Schenke: Rachael Cheeseman led her Tri-fusion
team to victory by creating an international business plan
for an innovative tricycle come bicycle based
on a real product developed at Purdue.
>>Rachael Cheeseman: it teaches you to think on your toes
and you've got to be able to think money,
and everything is money nowadays,
no matter what you go into, and it was basically, you know,
you have to think money in everything.
When we were trying to figure out how much we needed to ask
for from the venture capitalist,
we had to change manufacturing cost, OEM deals,
I didn't even know what an OEM was, and these are things
that you need to know when you enter the business world,
no matter what you're doing, so it was very informative.
>> Jim Schenke: Purdue's first gentlemen Christian Foster,
who engages future Science, Technology, Engineering
and Math students for Purdue's Discovery Park,
delivered the academy's keynote address at Hillenbrand Hall.
He drew from economist Adam Smith when he observed
that a prosperous nation is a result
of many people bringing new enterprises into existence.
>>Christian Foster: And I congratulate today's honoree's,
and each of you who has completed the Entrepreneurship
Academy, this is the kind of experience
that can change your life, and if you build on it,
you can change the lives of many others for the better,
that's what entrepreneurs do.
>>For Purdue News Service, I'm Jim Schenke.