From the DVHS Facebook page
On March 17-18, Deer Valley High School’s Virtual Enterprise team participated in its final competition of the year where it took home prizes in three categories.
In total, there were 79-Virtual Enterprise firms and 1,112 students in attendance from not only California, but across the United States, including one team from Germany.
- Elijah Minyard – 1st place for the One Minute Elevator pitch
- Marc Bates, Pedro Molina, Saafir Farrell, and Dominic Smith – 3rd place for company branding and logo
- Connor Landrum – Honorable mention (a top 10 finalists) for his video commercial
According to Kristofer Freeman, Business Technology Academy Lead at Deer Valley High School, it was their highest scoring year thus far.
Deer Valley High Robotics Team. Courtesy of AUSD.
Minyard, who serves as the class CEO, explained that they came up with the idea of Claws and Paws Paradise, a luxury resort for dogs and cats, after a fellow student shared their passion about animals with them.
Marc Bates highlighted that just by doing a lot of the work associated with this business, it opened his eyes to what its like to run a business and what options are available to him.
“The biggest thing I learned is you need to be informed about a lot of things such as the human mind because you have to know how people perceive things. Like with graphics and IT, we had to learn colors and certain positions of items on layouts because it would change people’s opinions,” explained Bates.
“For example, the blue we chose was calm and a refreshing vibe so when people leave their pets here it gives off a calm and relaxed feeling.”
Minyard added that he believed the great thing about Virtual Enterprise was how accommodating it was for everyone; it allowed people to use all their skill sets to help the business. “People have different styles and ideas of how to pursue things, because we have different interest in things, there are different departments that cater to student’s interests and skill set,” explained Minyard. “The great thing is you get to develop your communication skills as well as social skills, so you learn to have clear communication with other departments with all the other employees. It also helps you learn how to promote yourself when you go into business because your communication skills are that much better.”
In total, six AUSD students completed in the competition at the Oakland Convention Center on behalf of the roughly 30-student class.
“We got to go into the competition and represent our classroom and share how much work the class did and hopefully do well,” said Maynard. “It was thrilling.”
Freeman explained that the students scored in the top 10% of the United States for Virtual Enterprises which is an international organization. The students’ business plan also scored in the top 42 for California.
Mr. Paul Ramirez of the Department of Labor will be the featured speaker.
