Camp BizSmart is pleased to announce expansion internationally, with a specially crafted “Budding Entrepreneur Workshop” introduced this Aug 9-13, 2010 in Hyderabad, India in association with Butterfly Fields at the Indian School of Business. “We have had great support and interest from the Indian community both in the US and in India, requesting that we bring our entrepreneur business academy, Camp BizSmart to students in India.” says Michael Gibbs, Ph.D. and CEO of Camp BizSmart.

Bryan Cockel, Camp BizSmart Curriculum Director will travel to India to be the Chief Mentor for the Hyderabad workshop. The Camp BizSmart-Butterfly Fields Budding Entrepreneur Workshop will be held at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. This program will occur at the same time there will be a Camp BizSmart session operating at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA, USA. Students from Hyderabad will Skype into Camp BizSmart students in Silicon Valley to share their ideas.

Butterfly Fields is a young start-up of professionals who graduated from IITs, IIMs and NID, with a vision to make learning more effective through activity-based pedagogy, setting up science exhibits and providing innovative teaching and educational aids. Butterfly Fields operates in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Vishakaptnam, Vijayawada and Warangal, Chennai and Jamshedpur in India. Butterfly Fields program is comprised of  hands-on activities and “enriching” experiences which are specifically designed to make the child “easily” understand the underlying concepts of “how things work” and at the same time, “enjoying” it. Butterfly Fields believes in “learning by doing” and the name Butterfly Fields becomes clear when you learn their motto is “why crawl when you can fly”.

“In Today’s competitive marketplace, early exposure to hands-on real world business skills could go a long way in shaping your careers.  We are excited to work together with Camp BizSmart and give a platform to inspire Budding Entrepreneurs in India” says Saket Gadia, Strategic Alliance Director of Butterfly Fields.

The learning theory of Butterfly Fields, “learning by doing” and that of Camp BizSmart, ” learn, do, check, act” compliments one another.

Camp BizSmart was founded, designed and developed by Dr. Michael Gibbs and Peggy Gibbs whose vision is to “inspire young entrepreneurs” by providing hands-on education and expert mentors to prepare students for the global competitive marketplace, drawing upon real world, business experts and business cases to practice and gain mastery in 21st century skills.

“Only an entrepreneurial approach – flexible, scrappy, collaborative, and unafraid of risk and failure – will succeed in this new world. We owe it to our children to help them develop these skills and attitudes with programs like Camp BizSmart.” Bill Reichert, Garage Technology Ventures, Managing Director and Camp BizSmart Advisor.

Camp BizSmart is a non-profit social enterprise founded in 2008 and is based in Los Gatos, CA  in the heart of Silicon Valley. Camp BizSmart currently operates in 4 locations – 3 in the US and the introductory program launching this August 2010 in Hyderabad, India.

Imagine this. . . you have a vivid dream about a new invention that will solve a problem you have been working on. This invention will help many people. Then you wake up, and if only you could capture exactly how it looked in your minds’ eye, and the cool functions you imagined.

Well, what if you could do a rough sketch of your idea and write down to the best of your ability the features and the benefits to the customer? Now, if only you had someone who could take these sketches and descriptions and with input from you – bring your idea to life in a beautiful rendering.

That’s exactly what the great industrial designers at WAGIC do when they sit with our student teams at Camp BizSmart. The students have already received the business problem that they are to solve directly from the executive of leading companies. The students are in fact operating as if they were a project team in the company coming up with a solution with an objective, outcomes and measurements and boundaries like budget and time to market. Now working with the WAGIC team they hone their ideas and bring it to life. Now the WAGIC guys are pretty impressive not just because they do great design work, but because they also do special effects business for movies and the students are impressed to know they have worked on Transformers, Iron Man and many others.

Ken and Ron Johnson the brothers at the helm of WAGIC have created a magical design company that helps solve real problems by making sure companies and our students are able to illustrate what they are thinking so others can see it clearly too and get as excited about it as they are when they see it in their “minds’ eye”.

This year, the WAGIC designers, Cassie, Anders. Valerie and Steve came to listen to the students and capture their ideas to be brought to life and then returned for the students’ review and approval. Just like when working with any company the industrial designers asked “did we capture your ideas as you imagined?” They work with our students at all of our sessions, Stanford Univ., Oahu and Santa Clara Unv.

This year, Bob Johnson, father of Ron and Ken Johnson and part of the team at WAGIC passed away. Bob was a great mentor to many people and set an example of what if means to give back by being there for others who need some coaching to get to the next level. The family and many of the folks who were touched by Bob’s generous giving spirit, decided to create a scholarship fund that would allow young entrepreneurs the opportunity to have assistance if needed to attend Camp BizSmart.

This year, 6 students were able to attend Camp BizSmart helped by partial scholarships that were made possible by many who wanted to honor Bob and his legacy of mentoring others. Now, his mentoring continues as others take up his role and mentor students who come to Camp BizSmart. Now, students who are passionate about learning to be an entrepreneur but have limited means will have an opportunity due to the generosity of many. If you would like to contribute to the Bob Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund, send us a note at Camp BizSmart, Bob Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 33271, Los Gatos, CA 95030 and pass it on! Camp BizSmart is a non-profit social enterprise organization.

You know how people always say that if you want to be a great tennis player, play with people better than you? So you want to be a great entrepreneur? Well, the same thing applies – if you want to be a great critical thinker, problem solver and innovator – hang out with great thinkers who have demonstrated success solving real problems!

Do great role models matter? We believe they do, and that’s why the entrepreneurs who come to share their wisdom and experiences with students at Camp BizSmart are selected with great care. These entrepreneurs have created successful companies, with real value and are also great people who are respected by their peers! We honor them because they take time out of their very busy schedules to inspire the Camp BizSmart students knowing how important it is to fill kids up with great stuff to get great stuff back.

So here’s to our heroes – the dreamers and visionaries who are doers and collaborators creating amazing value that is good for all of us! Let me share a glimpse of the entrepreneurs who are mentoring and inspiring our students in Silicon Valley this summer:

Maigread Eichten is a kick-off speaker for us at Stanford and Santa Clara talking about what makes great teams and how to work with the company executives who have sponsored business problems this summer. Last year, whenMaigread was the CEO for FRS, the company sponsored a business problem for student teams to solve.

Maigread Eichten

Maigread has led teams as CEO at FRS and now Eichten consulting.

Howard Charney, Sr. VP for Cisco, is an annual favorite! Howard talks to the students about solving the right problem, critical thinking and respecting your team. Having founded 3 companies including 3com and Grand Junction, he knows about innovation and working with a great team to achieve great things!

Howard Charney

Howard also shares insight from his journey as an entrepreneur and holds a “contest of ideas” with the students to let them pre-test their business solutions before going in front of a panel of judges for our business plan competition.

Kevin Surace, CEO, Serious Materials, and Inc Magazine, “entrepreneur of the year”. Kevin talked about what it’s like to start-up a company, stating it takes persistence, innovation and determination because there will be good days and hard days and you need to be ready to get through them both! He gave real examples of being a game-changer and valuable thoughts on how to address tough problems and tough questions other throw at you. Kevin’s company sponsored a business problem in 2009.

Kevin Surace

Chris Horgan, of Pinnacle, demystified the topic of intellectual property, what has value and what can be protected. We all think that our ideas are extremely valuable – but are they? And if they are, can they be protected? Should they be? An interesting discussion from an industry expert who made the topic easy to understand. He created a game for us to teach what intellectual property is. The kids loved it!

Chris Horgan

James Bickford, is one of our young entrepreneurs, having founded his first company, Valence Energy, while he was still a student at Santa Clara University, and now working with a second company, Tigo Energy to continue building his career at the ripe old age of 23! James share his story of leading the 2008 SCU Solar Decathlon team to 3rd place in the national competition overcoming what seemed like insurmountable odds. A great story about always being ready to compete, overcoming obstacles and never giving up!

James Bickford

Entrepreneurial thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation applies to all kinds of business. Students sometimes forget that those who have chosen a career in the arts must use good business skills if they want to create a sustainable business. Remember the old saying ” how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice!” It is fitting to close with this next entrepreneur, a musician, teacher, and composer – Brian Moran. He is part of a local Brazilian Jazz group, Grupo Falso Baiano.

Brian Moran

Brian was able to share with the students that it isn’t enough to have a talent or a love of something – though a very good place to start. You must want it enough to put the time in, be persistent, dedicated, practice so you know it really well and can then color your presentation with the richness of your experience and the passion that made you believe so strongly in committing to this idea, this problem to solve, this song to write, your part to play as a soloist or in a well-honed team. Making beautiful music as well as making successful companies looks easy when a master is showing you what they do – but oh my friend do not be fooled – even though you did not see it happen – it took lots of dedication, persistence, and the willingness to defeat obstacles by coming up with yet again, new solutions. Brian wrote our original “Camp BizSmart Theme”. We will post it soon for your enjoyment. In the meantime, dream of ways to solve the problems you encounter and be determined to create value in your world. Creating something of great value takes hard work, guts and determination, but it is worth every effort you put into it! Thanks to all of those who inspire us to stretch and grow beyond what we are today to be ready to solve the great challenges of tomorrow!

The competition for top student team of Camp BizSmart 2010 is definitely on! Each year we say the business solutions the student teams come up with are amazing. And this year, looking at the first round from teams competing at our Stanford session – every team brought it! But who won this first round?

HopeLab Team 1 – Stanford session, was awarded first place for the best business plan and presentation by the esteemed panel of judges. HopeLab Team 1 -Stanford, was lead by student CEO, Tony Klachin, with CTO, Shaurey Vetsa, CMO, James Otani, CIO, Mohnish Shah, CFO, Ashley Pak, CMFO Grant Narasin and CSO, Nick LaBruna. The team created a winning solution using the HopeLab Zamzee device, to encourage tweens to be active.

The second place team, named “the most innovative marketing idea” was the Club One Fitness Team 2. Student team members are: CEO, Claire Wang, CTO, Chirag Toprani, CSO, Gabriel Cao, CMO, Jessica Xu, CIO, Valentine Nguyen and CFO, Truman Leung. This team came up with a winning marketing idea to encourage healthy habits in tweens.

In addition individual awards were captured by: Tony Klachin (Stanford Camp 1), and Gabriel Cao (Stanford Camp 2), named “most likely to be the next Steve Jobs” and Sammer Vij (Stanford Camp1) and Karen Sung (Stanford Camp 2), named “most inspirational leader and entrepreneur”. All of our students worked hard but these students set themselves apart by displaying heightened persistence, innovation, critical thinking and problem solving while inspiring their teams and other students.

That’s all we can report for now because the competition is still going on, with additional teams working on their solutions for these business problems as well as ones from other companies. Student Teams actual solutions won’t be made public until the competition finale. So continue to watch our blog for the latest update.

Judges for the Camp BizSmart Stanford session July 16, 2010, held at Microsoft’s Executive Conference Center were: David Dembitz, lead judge, Lata Krishnan, Bill Reichert, Manish Chandra, Chris Law, Harry Motro and George Chao.

Camp BizSmart 2010 will have 1st place winners named at each of its three locations holding 10 day Camp BizSmart programs: Camp BizSmart at Stanford University, July 6-17 (which just concluded), Camp BizSmart Oahu shared by Iolani and Punahou schools, July 26-Aug 6, and Camp BizSmart at Santa Clara University, Aug 2-13,2010.

Camp BizSmart operates a 10 day, business academy where students work hands-on to gain 21st Century business and entrepreneurial skills. Student teams are given a real world business problem to solve from company executives. Every company that provides a business problem has an executive come to Camp BizSmart to discuss the objective and desired outcome just as if they were a project team within the company. Student teams work to solve, support and defend their solution to a panel of judges to compete for the 2010 best team business solution.

Special thanks to our Camp BizSmart Stanford session angels:

James Sweeney, Dir. of the Precourt Energy Center at Stanford University. Business problem sponsors - Hara, Tigo, HopeLab and Club One Fitness. Business Plan Stanford Competition host: Microsoft Our fantastic and inspiring entrepreneurs: Howard Charney, Sr. VP Cisco, Kevin Surace, CEO, Serious Materials, Maigread Eichten, CEO, Eichten Consulting, James Bickford,Tigo Energy and Chris Horgan, Pinnacle Partners and Ron Hazelton, iBuild2. The WAGIC crew of Anders, Cassie, Valerie and Steve, lead by Ron Johnson,and the esteemed judges panel listed above. The students, faculty and staff of Camp BizSmart thank you for sharing your wisdom, experience and inspiration!

So game on! The best from each of the three sessions: Stanford, Oahu and Santa Clara University will compete for the honor of being named the best of the best for Camp BizSmart 2010. Stay tuned for the next 1st and 2nd place winners to be announced from each site as they conclude. The Camp BizSmart 2010 grand finale 1st place team and 2nd place marketing idea will be fiercely competitive and the excitement will continue to build until they are named. No matter who wins the final competition – we all win because these bright students are sure to create priceless value for their communities and the world! I can’t think of anything we need more when you consider all the problems in the world that need to be solved!

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) is more efficient and less costly than Photovoltaic panels (PV). CSP is a viable option to create drinking water from sea water. Students at Camp BizSmart will work in a team to design a portable, clean water unit using Sopogy CSP technology.

Camp BizSmart students will:
* Create a new application of Sopogy CSP technology that doesn’t exist today
* Design a unique, portable, efficient clean water ( from sea water) unit using Sopogy CSP technology
* Make the Sopogy “sea water to clean water unit” the machine of choice in disaster relief efforts.
* Evaluate competitors with similar products & list Sopogy protable calen water CSP machine features and benefits which will differentiate it to buyers.

Camp BizSmart Student Team Outcomes:
The students must design a portable unit that can be carried by a single adult at least 10 miles, operate in most climates with no other available source of power, be simple enough to be handled by rookies with only an hour of training. The unit must make water that is safe to drink. In addition, the students will create marketing and sales partnerships with existing solar distribution and utilities and a campaign. They will need to include partnerships with credible disaster relief organizations. Production cost per portable unit will not exceed $1,000. Time to launch: 1 year with 4 month milestone intervals.

Darren Kimura, CEO of Sopogy, will kick-off this business case challenge with the students on the first day of Camp BizSmart. Then the students will work to create their solution and new device, support it with a business plan and pitch it to a panel of judges in a business plan competition on the 9th day of camp. Mentors will coach the students on the various pieces of competitive analysis, market research, sales and marketing strategies, design, and budgets and public speaking skills.

With water being such a precious resource this is a challenge worthy of any student who wishes to create something innovative that can have great benefit and significant impact.

The Oahu Camp BizSmart session will begin at Iolani school and end at Punahou school and runs July 26-Aug 6, 2010.  Oahu students will have two different company business problems to solve – Sopogy in the energy efficiency space and  HopeLab in the health and fitness space.  Contact Mike and Peggy Gibbs Camp BizSmart founders for more information.  Camp BizSmart is a non profit social enterprise inspiring young entrepreneurs.

Ron Hazelton has been a national home improvement television personality for fifteen years. He has hosted two national home improvement shows, The House Doctor and Ron Hazelton’s HouseCalls. He’s also been the Home Improvement Editor for ABC’s Good Morning American, hosted The History Channel’s series Hands on History and authored three books on home improvement. Ron hosts the website: www.ronhazelton.com

Ron grew up playing in his father’s workshop and learned, early on, the value and fun of working with his hands. He firmly believes that children who have the opportunity to build things, develop life-long practical problem-solving skills and are better able to make sense of conceptual knowledge such as math and writing by applying it in fun, challenging, real life situations.

Intrigued by this idea, he founded DaniMax Corporation (named for his two young children Danielle and Max) and created iBuild2 is a building system designed for children 9 – 12 that enables them to use safe power tools to cut, shape and fashion a non-wood material into practical projects.

The system is designed to engage, entertain and educate pre-teens by giving them a real building experience normally reserved for older teens and young adults. The system uses power tools that won’t cut skin and employs a non-wood (polyurethane) material. Children use power and hand tools to fashion the polyurethane into components and then assemble those components into finished projects.

Part toy, part tool and part learning experience, the iBuild2 system empowers kids by encouraging them do as well as hear and see.

A key marketing objective is to create a series of project kits that would appeal to kids in this target age group. The kits need to be relevant to the age group’s interests, within their level of ability and capable of being made using iBuild2’s tools and material. Interestingly, the enjoyment and satisfaction comes from the actual building of the project. However, the completed project – the end result – provides the motivation and must be something kids ultimately want and find worthwhile.

This mini-design case requires Camp Bizsmart students to look back a few years to their own interests and experiences during their tween years and also use their powers of observation to see what today’s pre-teens find appealing. Then, using this experience, observation and information, develop a real project for the iBuild2 system. Working on this mini-case the students’ at both the Stanford University and Santa Clara University, Camp BizSmart sessions, will practice design and creative innovation brainstorming helping them gain important skills to use when solving their own team’s business challenges. A great benefit for everyone!

Because of a growing market, government incentives, and the declining cost per kilowatt hour, solar energy is, more than ever, a popular choice for homeowners. Tigo has a technology that improves the output of solar energy by as much as 20%.

Past founder of Valence Energy, and now Tigo Business executive and entrepreneur, James Bickford, has challenged Camp BizSmart students to use Tigo real time solar panel measurements to start a whole new business for Tigo by designing a mobile or web based app for residential solar system installers, which can integrate into Tigo Energy’s current software. Students will design the app, the revenue model, and a marketing plan to achieve the following objectives:

*Build the app to give the installers a competitive advantage.
*Use at least three data/control points in the Tigo Energy database to build their app which can include: power use per solar panel problem alerts, integrated weather information, collection of data from the meters of other companies, or On/Off controls.
*Create a revenue stream to target amounts and timing provided in the business case challenge.
*Make sure the installers achieve an annual return of at least 10 times their investment in the cost of the app and have it go-to-market ready in 6 mos.

In addition to these objectives the app must preserve the homeowners privacy.

James will provide the kick-off discussion of the Tigo business challenge at both the Stanford University and Santa Clara University Camp BizSmart sessions. He is definitely an inspiration to young people who hope to be entrepreneurs. After graduating from Santa Clara with a degree in mechanical engineering and leading SCU’s inaugural Solar Decathlon (solardecathlon.org) team to a surprise third-place finish in the international competition, James Bickford ‘08 co-founded Valence Energy(ValenceEnergy.com), a company that develops energy efficiency software. James is now the marketing manager of Tigo Energy (Tigoenergy.com), an innovative startup in Silicon Valley focusing on solar innovations.

Originally from Tacoma, Washington, James Bickford would not have guessed he’d be called an entrepreneur before even graduating. But his participation in the 2007 Solar Decathlon took him down a surprising path: One month after receiving his diploma, he was reporting to work—at a start-up renewable energy business that he co-founded.

The competition is on! There are four business challenges for Camp BizSmart student teams who attend either the Stanford University July 6-17 or Santa Clara University Aug 2-13 sessions. Read the other blogs to learn about all of the business problems students will solve at each location this summer 2010!

Everyone wants to be healthy, but many forces in our environment combine to cause us to make less healthy choices. Club One Fitness created the Habit Changer, already used in 50 countries, to allow people to voluntarily and effectively adopt healthier habits on their own. Club One Fitness CEO Jim Mizes, has challenged student teams to design a new,unique program specifically for tweens and promote it cost-effectively to reach the world. Jim and Club One Fitness CFO and CTO, Carey White will mentor Camp BizSmart team members who will pick the issues they believe will have the most impact for tweens all around the world – such as nutrition, physical activity, sleep that influence overall health. They they may use games, or other creative ways to engage tweens with their 7 days of habit changer challenges and are asked to think of ways to monetize their program so it can be sustainable. The students will create the first tween version of the 42 Day Habit Changer Challenge.

Here’s a peek into how the 42 Day Challenge works: Because we’re human, we all have habits. Some are great – some we can live without. The 42 Day Challenge is a system to change your negative habits. It’s easy to forget without a reminder. So emails and texts are used to create friendly reminders that provide painless steps to create awareness and are fun to do.

Club One created “Feeding Your Kids“ a free program for parents designed in conjunction with the Clinton Global Initiative to reach parents worldwide with advice on how to feed their children healthy food & adopt healthy eating habits themselves.

All students at Camp BizSmart sessions work on a mini-case to design a marketing campaign that will get the word out to parents everywhere about this free program. The best concept has the potential of being used to create a viral campaign. It will be a fun way to learn marketing techniques that can be used in each of their own business problem solutions and to be part of something significant as it spreads throughout the world. Sounds like a real win win for everyone no matter what company business problem any student works on with their team while at Camp BizSmart this summer!

Award winning green tech startup, Hara Software Inc. returns to present Camp BizSmart students with a new business challenge to solve. Student teams will design a fun and creative iPad app to help big customers track their resource usage so they can save money and leave smaller footprints.

In this tough economy, Hara knows that one of the best ways to grow and profit while minimizing risk is to use resources as efficiently as possible. Companies say that”what you can measure – you can manage” and “while not all products may last forever, they may leave a lasting impression”.

That’s why Hara has developed the concept of “organizational metabolism”. Hara enables organizations to understand, manage and optimize their organizational metabolism – the collective resources consumed and expended by an organization – including energy, water, waste, carbon and other natural resources.

See how CEO Amit Chatterjee and Hara Software helped the City of
Palo Alto to save more than $2M and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15% over the next 3 years.

Hara has emerged as an industry leader with high-profile customers including, supermarket giant, Safeway Inc., and soft-drinkmaker, The Coca-Cola Co., to name only a few.

The White House is so impressed by the way Hara Software helped these companies as well as others that CEO Amit Chatterjee was invited to the White House to discuss innovation and job creation.

Udo Waibel, co-founder, returns along with other great Hara staff to inspire and mentor the students’ as they work on the important issue of energy efficiency!

HopeLab, a non-profit that harnesses the power of technology and fun to improve kid’s health, is sponsoring a business problem for student business teams to solve at Camp BizSmart. Students working on a HopeLab team will personally test and evaluate a new HopeLab product designed to increase physical activity in tweens. The product – previously known as gDitty, now rebranded to Zamzee

A Zamzee Prototype -

combines an activity meter with an online rewards program that motivates kids to move more. The product is expected to be launched publicly in 2011. This summer Camp BizSmart students will provide valuable design feedback, marketing strategy and sales tactics to achieve selling at least 600 Zamzee device in a particular geographic area in advance of the product launch.

“If anyone knows what appeals to kids, it’s kids themselves – they’re the experts,” said Richard Tate, director of communications and marketing for HopeLab. “We’re really excited to have Camp BizSmart students lend their expertise to our thinking on how to market Zamzee and, ultimately, get kids moving more.” CEO, Pat Christen will be on hand to kick-off the business challenge to student teams at our Stanford and Santa Clara Univ. sites, as well as at our Oahu site for Iolani and Punahou schools.

HopeLab’s vision for Zamzee is to ignite a lifetime of physical activity in every kid, as a way to fight the devastating effects of childhood obesity. Already recognized by the White House for its work to “get kids moving”, HopeLab and Zamzee make for an exciting real-world business challenge with potential for positive social impact.

Visit HopeLab’s website or their Sticky Notes blog to learn more.

Camp BizSmart is a non profit social enterprise inspiring young entrepreneurs by partnering with successful companies and organizations to provide real world business problems for student teams to solve, support and defend in a business plan competition. Camp BizSmart students learn valuable 21st century business and entrepreneurial skills that help them connect the dots as to why critical thinking, innovative and sound problem solving are important and can create priceless value in the world.