Middle school entrepreneurs show ‘think big’ energy at NC State Clinic

For the past five weeks, a group of 24 students at Lowe’s Grove Middle School in Durham have been learning how to use technology to create new problem-solving business ideas. Their teachers are seven IT professionals from Credit Suisse who are volunteering through the 10-week Citizen Schools after-school enrichment program held each Monday at the middle school.

On March 23, the students and their Citizen Schools teachers took a field trip to downtown Raleigh, to discuss their ideas with NC State University students working as clinicians at the NC State Entrepreneurship Clinic located in HQ Raleigh.

Following are the startup concepts that the middle school students brought to their consulting sessions.

• Hearrings. These would be earring-style combination hearing aids and headphones.
• A personal hygiene mirror. This would be a bathroom mirror with tech-based components that “does your hair, helps with brushing teeth, etc. This is intended for people with disabilities who may have trouble with personal hygiene otherwise.”
• 3-D food printer, for printing 3-D foods that are healthy. The idea would be to make healthy foods taste better by printing them and the students think this would also be a more convenient and inexpensive way of accessing healthy foods.
• Wireless charger. This device would charge all phones, laptops, etc., within a given range, with no cords required.

Any shyness the younger students may have had when they got off their school bus dissipated as the college students, working with the individual project groups in HQ’s glass-enclosed meeting rooms, began asking questions and providing tips that got the young entrepreneurs to look at their projects from various perspectives.

One of the clinicians suggested telling a short story that describes a problem and how the team’s business idea would solve it. Another recommendation was to complete a thorough search online to see if anything similar already existed and to explore potential partnerships. And another clinician said he found it useful to draw a picture of the end product and then figure out how to make each component work.

The group conversations became animated as the middle school students picked up on the suggestions and began describing features, distribution channels, partnerships, marketing and pricing ideas for their products. The Hearrings team, for example, discussed using rechargeable batteries for their product and incorporating the wireless charger concept developed by one of the other middle school teams.

"The energy from the students was amazing," said Lewis Sheats, director of the NC State Entrepreneurship Clinic and senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at the NC State Poole College of Management. "They have wide eyes and the passion for knowledge that is exhilarating as you hear them share their ideas. Our Clinic students were extremely impressed with the middle school students' abilities to think big. It provided our students a unique opportunity to be on the other side of the table and provide mentorship to the next generation of entrepreneurs," Sheats said. 

During the next five weeks, the middle school students will continue to develop their business plans for their products, learn about branding and financials and perfect their product pitches which will be given during the Citizen School’s WOW! event on May 12 at Lowe’s Grove Middle School.

“The WOW! event is the students’ opportunity to showcase what they’ve learned to the community,” said Erin Buckman, one of the Citizen School volunteer teachers and lead member for Credit Suisse’s IT Cares Committee. That committee keeps Credit Suisse technology employees at the company’s Raleigh location aware of tech-focused volunteer opportunities in the area.

Buckman and other members of the committee have worked with Citizen Schools for the last two years, “teaching things like web design, how to get into a career in IT and this semester, “E-Magination” entrepreneurship with a focus on technology.

“The team gave the student groups a list of technologies – including wireless technology, 3-D printing, in home automation – and a list of objectives, such as making something safer for people, cheaper, healthier,” she said. “The students paired technologies with objectives and came up with their own ideas for products, which they pitched to the clinicians at the NC State Entrepreneurship Clinic.”

At their WOW! event which concludes this semester’s program – called an apprenticeship by the Citizen Schools program – the students will pitch their business plans and products to “potential investors,” who will be the fellow students, teachers, parents and community members attending their WOW! celebration.

“The field trip to the NC State Entrepreneurship Clinic let the students get some hands on experience practicing a formal pitch and also allowed them to get some great feedback from entrepreneurs to make their products and business plans even better,” Buckman said.