“Good morning! Welcome to the first day of class! This year in our class, you are going to change the world!” This is the message our students received on the first day of school back in August. Eight months later, our students have three incredible student ventures that they are going to pitch to the community on May 4th and May 6th in school and nationwide pitch competitions. 

With the funds we raise through this project, our students will have the chance to compete for prizes that will be given to our students in both school and nationwide competitions between May 4th and May 6th. We need to quickly raise funds in order to award teams with prizes that will help to propel their passion for social change and/or their business ventures forward. 

• Audience Vote Prize: 1 tablet/iPad per student
  Value: up to $1650 (3-5 students per team @ $330/tablet)
   
• Judges' Prize: Startup Kit

  Value: $579 ($250 Gift Card to Best Buy, $100 Gift Card to Office Depot, $100 to GoDaddy, and One Month of workspace at Co+Hoots for $79).
   
• Consolation Prize: Two $100 Gift Cards

About the Student Ventures: Our students are learning about social entrepreneurship:  using business best practices to create sustainable solutions to social problems.  They have formed teams around social problems they are interested in addressing.  Each team is focusing on a specific solution they feel is most viable. All three teams have interesting venture ideas.

• Animal Welfare Team – “Exchange”:  Their venture looks to reduce animal abuse associated with dogs being constrained with collars that cause physical pain and damage.  Their idea is to provide humane collars at affordable prices. They will sell their humane collars at a premium to those wanting to help those less fortunate, and will sell at a lower price to low income areas with high incidents of metal collar use. They will also offer a discount if people “exchainge” a metal collar. They will use the exchanged metal chains to create some form of public art to help with awareness and donations.
• Education Team – “Student Choice Awards”:  Their venture looks to improve education outcomes by recognizing excellence in teaching.  They want to raise awareness of the importance of having high quality teachers, and they hope to improve teacher recruitment and retention by recognizing and rewarding excellent teaching.  Their award program will be unique as students will manage all aspects of the program, including nominating, evaluating, and selecting the teacher, as well as planning and running the award events.
• Environmental Team – “Phoenix Aquaponics”:  Their venture looks to turn food desserts into food oasis’s by set up a collaborative network of aquaponics systems at schools in the Phoenix area. Aquaponics systems are an empowering way to grow fresh produce and protein (fish) at low cost with minimal water usage and environmental impact. Their approach would be used to facilitate STEM education, provide after school classes for students and families on building and operating aquaponic systems, and would create a collaborative platform for schools to share experiences, collaborate and utilize their produce effectively.

About the Class Facilitators: The Seed Spot Next Social Entrepreneurship class is co-facilitated by Richie Ressel and Jan Miller. Richie Ressel, Co-founder and Executive Director of HEROES For Students, is an alum of the SEED SPOT program as well as an alum of Teach For America. Jan Miller, recently retired, worked for the Salt River Project for 28 years as an engineer and lead strategist. Jan was also on the Board of Directors for Phoenix Collegiate Academy and had been getting involved as a volunteer at SEED SPOT.

To attend the National Student Pitch Competition (SEED SPOT NEXT DEMO DAY) Click Here!

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