Today a colleague and I critiqued a business plan presented by high schoolers at the Academy of Finance and Enterprise (AOFE) in Long Island City, New York. They presented like pros a full blown plan; complete with mission statement, marketing plans, a SWOT analysis, a complete set of financials and lots lots more. The amount of effort and teamwork to put this together was extraordinary.
We were impressed!
So before I go on I want to give a shout out to the Assurance Services for Advanced Progress (ASAP) team who just took 2nd place in the Queens competition and is moving on to the NY City Business Plan Competition in January.
Here’s how it works……
AOFE’s joined Virtual Enterprises International (VEI) which hosts a global virtual business network where high schoolers from over 5,000 schools around the globe (500 in the U.S.) learn and compete. The network teaches students about business, entrepreneurship, finance, economics and technology. Guided by a teacher/facilitator and business mentors, students create and manage a virtual company, conducting business with other virtual firms nationally and internationally.
The U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2011). Digest of Education Statistics, 2010 (NCES 2011-015), indicates that there are over 24,000 high schools in the Unites States. That means that only 2% of U.S. high schools presently participate with Virtual Enterprises.
If you’d like your child to have this opportunity call your school board and advocate for it.
jaysanderscpa 
Thanks for spreading the word about this wonderful program, and all your efforts with the ASAP team. It makes such a difference to have a mentor provide guidance and support. Hope you can make it to the National Business Plan Competition (March27-28)!
Thanks Calgary. It’s rewarding for us to work with the kids.
Jay
This looks like such an awesome program! I will look into it more and see if my children’s high school would be interested. Thanks for letting us know about it!
Hi Pam, you can visit veinternational.org/about to see a four minute about the program. Thanks for your interest!
Thank you so much for taking the time to work with the students. The students appreciate all your advice and are working on their changes even during their break. Thank you again!
Janina,
I really like the changes they’ve made to their FB page already so I’m sure they’re making improvements to the plan as well. Let me know if they would like additional feedback or help.
Jay
Wonderful that you are reaching the high school students with excellent business practices and advice!