30 students, 7 teams developed 7 business plans, 1 winner of $10k prize – But the transformation of high school students into entrepreneurs is highly rewarding.

Seven outstanding teams with business plans ranging from tech gadgets, roadside plazas, easy healthy meals, and E-text books waited in bated breath as the $10K award was announced at TiECON East 2008. When the winning team, RVR Tech of Mark Jabre, Steve Kraplin and Daniel Sigalovsky was announced by Don Dodge of Microsoft, it was the end of a season of rigor and reward.

 CEO,Marc Jabre of the winning team offered his thoughts on the program, “TYE was very helpful. Most specifically, I remember SWOT analysis, that simple acronym is an excellent, basic guide to the whole process. Overall, with a friendly competitive atmosphere and really smart people everywhere you turn, each TYE class proved to be invaluable to our ultimate success in the $10K competition”.

“Our vision is to create an environment/ecosystem where entrepreneurship is celebrated and where young people dream of becoming entrepreneurs or business leaders” says Geetha Ramamurthy, Chair of TYE.

This year, TYE efforts were recognized when it bagged the Award for Most Successful Involvement of Young Entrepreneurs from TiE Global at Hawaii recently. The award cites TiE Boston’s pioneering efforts in recognizing young entrepreneurs as the future of TiE and its belief  in recognition of a Chapter which is going the extra mile proactively organizing events and initiatives to energize this vital and core member community.

TYE was started in 2005 as part of the education program of TiE-Boston to help young people to learn to be entrepreneurs or think entrepreneurial and discover the rewards and excitement of taking an idea, develop it into a viable and scalable business model, present the business plan to a group of judges, who are VCs and entrepreneurs and win a $10k prize. The main objectives are:

*        Equip students with the skills essential for entrepreneurs

*        Nurture and incubate the entrepreneurial ambitions of students

*        Cultivate and leverage their ideas to fruition

The program provides a six month curriculum, which includes 3 month class room instruction followed by 3 month workshops.  Students meet on Saturdays.  The classes include inspirational speech by a successful entrepreneur followed by lecture and interactive discussion on business related topics. Workshops are designed to help students practice on how to present their business plan and develop soft skills.  Each participating team receives mentoring support.

 The Competition

 The students form teams comprise of 2 to 6 students per team.  Each team comes up with an idea and develops the idea into a viable business plan with the guidance of the mentor.  All teams present their business plan to a panel of Judges, who represent VCs, Angels and Entrepreneurs. The winning team is awarded the $10k cash prize.

As one judge Gaugarin Oliver, CEO, RedEgg Solutions, Inc. remarked after the competition, “Thanks for inviting me to judge this event. Wow, what bright minds!! I was very impressed with their responses to probing questions, better than many adult entrepreneurs I have come across. Kudos to the TYE committee and the coaches”.

Thanks to the hard work and commitment of the TYE committee, Ron Beraha, Mona Chopra, Dev Gupta and Praveen Sahay, the program is all geared for the next season that begins in October 08 this year. 

TYE is a member based SIG under the umbrella of TiE-Boston. TYE is now a very popular program and fills up quickly. It is recommended that you register early for the 2009 TYE $10k Business Plan Competition. .  To join or to learn more details please contact Geetha Ramamurthy at Grramamurthy@gmail.com

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