Serious Materials Team brainstorming A 21st century classroom design

Camp BizSmart is pleased to announce  our newest location for ”Tweenpreneurs” age 11-15 will be  at Stanford University July 6-17, 2010.  Innovative companies with passionate & inspirational founders & leaders from companies like Serious Materials, Hara, Valence Energy, and FRS, challenge the students to solve important “hot topic” problems.  Executive mentors from Apple, Google, Cisco and WAGIC mentor and coach the students in the basics of innovation and design, business planning, marketing and sales, idea generation, and finance.   Students hone their writing and presentation skills as they prepare to pitch their business plan to a panel of Silicon Valley investors.  Students compete for the ”top business plan” and  “best go to market idea”.  The top two teams pitch to CEO’s in the boardroom following Camp BizSmart.  The grand prize winning team appears at a prestigious entrepreneur event. Spaces are limited - sign up now!

Valence Energy Team pitching a cool invention to clean solar panels

MANAGEMENT GURU TOM PETERS WITH THE HARA 2 TEAM

These smiling faces (left to right: Mike Gibbs, Karthik Bala, Peggy Gibbs, Michael Cheng, Tom Peters, Fernanda Gutierrez, Michaela Kastelman, Sachin Vadodaria, and Ellen Pieterse. Samir Kishore was not present.) show the excitement of the winning Camp BizSmart team with Newpreneur of the Year Finale featured speaker, Tom Peters. The students enjoyed talking with Mr. Peters, one of the most influential and distinctive voices in the business world and the author of numerous books including In Search of Excellence.  Ken Johnson, VP of Ideas at WAGIC  a valued partner of Camp BizSmart, observed “Those teen entrepreneurs having the opportunity to talk to Tom Peters, is like young musicians talking with Paul McCartney—nothing beats meeting a living legend.”

The team was recognized and introduced following a slide show and remarks depicting their Camp BizSmart entrepreneurial journey, by Bob LaPointe, President of Inc. Magazine and sponsor of the competion along with Alibaba.com. Kelly Sang, director of Alibaba.com Americas, a Camp BizSmart business plan competition judge, invited the Hara 2 team to the finals. “After meeting the members of the winning Camp BizSmart team this summer I was energized by their entrepreneurial spirit and passion for learning,” said Kelly Sang, ” I invited them to attend the Alibaba.com Newpreneur finale to give them the opportunity to continue to grow and learn from entrepreneurs just like them and to see first hand how supporting small business can impact the economy.”

It was a great experience for the team to hear the ideas of 13 entrepreneurs from all around the United States. Products built with parts sourced from the Alibaba.com system ranged from an affordable single gear bike made by Sole Bicycles to the winner, Joel Smith of FWD Mobility  who designs and distributes breakthrough medical mobility products to help users maintain their independence.  And who knows, with such great inspiration and continued skill building perhaps a Camp BizSmart student will emerge as a Newpreneur of the Year in the future.

Maigread Eichten (L) & Jim Taschetta

FRS Team # 1 with CEO

On Tuesday October 20th, FRS Team # 1 led by team CEO, Sarina Vij wowed the FRS executive team at their Redwood City headquaters.
The smiling faces in the picture above, left to right are: Piyush Prasad, Godwin Vincent, FRS Chief Marketing Officer Jim Taschetta, Monica Thukral, Team CEO Sarina Vij, FRS CEO Maigread Eichten and Julie Phillips. Not shown is FRS team member Felipe Braun who was unable to attend.
FRS CEO Maigread told the team that their presentation beat the work done by a University MBA team. She and Jim said the Camp BizSmart students, who won the “Best Go-To-Market” plan, had great financials, a brilliant marketing concept and a very well delivered presenatation.
FRS executives were enthusiastic about the new and innovative can design for the teen market. CEO Eichten commented that based on the Camp BizSmart FRS team’s business plan, it might be a good thing to review a possible entry into the teen market. They quizzed the kids on the cost of the new can design, and learned from Ken Johnson, VP for Ideas at innovation company WAGIC, that the additional cost to produce a can with a heat sensitive design was less than two cents.

The students loaded up on FRS chews and drinks, tee shirts and ball caps, compliments of FRS.
Thanks to FRS for being a thoughtful and dedicated Camp BizSmart team project sponsor. FRS Team # 1 led by Sarina Vij did a terrific job!! Way to go!

Hara Two Ready for Hara Time

The winning Hara Two team led by CEO Michaela Kastleman presented their Camp BizSmart 2009 winning idea to the Hara team at their offices last Wednesday September 23rd. Above, Michaela chats with Hara CEO Amit Chatterjee (left) and Chief Technology Officer, Udo Waibel after the pitch. The entire Hara team filled the conference room at their headquarters as Michaela’s team showed them their Apple App Personal Energy Tracking System.

Money Grows on Trees

We give a big round of applause to Amit and the wonderful people at Hara. Thank you!!

This year with the support of Paul Witkay, Founder and CEO of the Allicance of Chief Executives,  Camp BizSmart challenged 46 aspiring young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with meaty, interesting and stimulating real life business problems. Alliance members Amit Chatterjee, CEO and founder of Hara proposed an Apple App to track personal energy use; Maigread Eichten, CEO of FRS tasked the teams with designing a new FRS healthy energy drink for teens; and Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials engaged the students by asking them to design a high “R” value classroom to save energy and enhance learning.

Paul attended the final business plan competition and saw Hara 2 CEO Michaela Kastleman & her team wow the judges with a business plan for an innovative, revenue producing App for the iPhone to allow users to audit their own energy use and have fun at the same time.

Hara 2 Team members work on their design

Camp BizSmart founders Mike & Peggy Gibbs very much appreciate the contributions of time and energy by people like Paul Witkay; without them the smiles on the faces of these young entrepreneurs would not be possible.

The 2009 Camp BizSmart Team at the Blue Rock

This past Saturday, Marie and Owen Jobson, founders and owners of the Blue Rock BBQ at 3001 Meridian in San Jose, hosted the staff of Camp BizSmart for a fine meal of pulled pork, BBQ ribs, salads, and my favorite— pecan pie. What a way to spend an afternoon–good friends, home cooking and terrific hospitality!!! Thank you Owen & Marie, you make a wonderful team.

Judges Cris Banks, Brad Mattson, and David Dembitz

What a great business plan competition we had at Lucas Hall on the campus of Santa Clara University last Thursday, August the 13th.  Eight teams representing sponsor companies Valence Energy, Hara, Serious Materials and FRS had 15 minutes to convince the six judges, Cris Banks(Haas Business School), Brad Mattson (Vantage Point Ventures), Bill Reichert (Garage Technology Ventures), David Dembitz (Keiretsu Forum), Chris Law (Aggregate Knowledge), and Kelly Sang (Alibaba.com) that their idea was worthy of taking to market.

Judges left to right Bill Reichert,  David Dembitz, Chris Law and Kelly Sang quiz the “Tweenprenerus” about financial and marketing strategies.

Michaela Kastelman (left) and the winning Hara Two team as they present their plan

The winning Hara Two team designed an iPhone app to track energy use and carbon emissions. The app was free and the judges liked their unique financial strategy. Congratulations to Michaela, Michael Cheng, Karthik Bala, Samir Kishore, Sachin Vadodaria and Maria Fernanda Gutierrez.

Ken Johnson & Cassie Tweed work with the Valence Energy 2 team

Camp BizSmart students were mightly impressed today when Los Gatos great idea company, WAGIC,  brought in their renderings of each team’s inventions. Cassie, an industrial designer at WAGIC and co-founder Ken Johnson get feedback from the Valence Energy 2 team on the teams idea for an innovative mechanical device to clean installed solar panels. Based on the team’s design, Cassie and Ken will go back and make modifications to the drawing as part of the Valence Energy Team 2’s presentation to the judges on Thursday.

Cassie Tweed, Seung Kim & Yugen Lockhart quiz Team Valence Energy on changes to their new device to clean solar panels

Camp BizSmart students were excited and inspired by their collaboration with the WAGIC team that included Ken Johnson, Ron Johnson, Jeff Donaldson, Steve Escobar, Yugen Lockhart, Anders Hudson, Seung Kim, Cassie Tweed, Alex Palomo, Chelsea Aleckson and Allen Wilson.

What a great Job by the Great Idea Company WAGIC