BENTONVILLE -- Two Fayetteville High School students earned a two-week internship to develop the idea they came up with Tuesday for solving a local organization's business problem.
Kyle Jiang and Nauman Malik, both 15, made up one of five teams of students participating in the first Biz+Ed Conference. It was a chance for Northwest Arkansas teens to apply their problem-solving skills to real-world business issues under the guidance of education and business leaders.
Keynote speaker
Rick Webb, senior vice president for global business processes at Wal-Mart, was the keynote speaker at the Biz+Ed Conference. Webb, who has a background in industrial engineeering, encouraged students to pursue a career related to science, technology, engineering and math. “You’re never going to be unemployed if you get a STEM education,” Webb said. He also spoke about the difficulty Wal-Mart and other companies have finding qualified workers in those fields. “We’re having to go all over the country to find the talent we need,” he said.
Source: Staff report
Northwest Arkansas businesses presented their problems to the student teams Tuesday morning. Teams had just a few hours to come up with a solution before presenting it on the Arend Arts Center stage that afternoon to a panel of judges.
Jiang and Malik received their challenge from HumanLink, which aims to connect high-quality caregivers with elderly clients. They presented a plan for a mobile dispatch application to improve communication within the Meals on Wheels program so meals can be delivered more efficiently.
Jiang and Malik will split $1,000 and get to develop their plan further during their internship. Randal Dickinson, a Fayetteville High engineering teacher who served as the team's mentor, received $500.
"They're so well spoken," Dickinson said about Jiang and Malik. "All the credit goes to them. I was just bouncing a few ideas off of them."
The judges believed the Fayetteville team presented "a sound understanding of the problem that led to a sound solution," said Joe Saumweber, chief executive officer of RevUnit, a product development firm in Bentonville.
Other teams representing Bentonville, Decatur, Greenland and Rogers high schools worked on problems presented by other businesses and organizations. There were 19 students in all.
The students, before receiving their business problems, were instructed on how to formulate their solutions using the Lean Canvas, which presents in simple form a combination of factors that should be considered when making a business plan.
"This allows you to quickly evaluate whether a product or service will be a good fit," said Jeff Amerine, founding principal of Startup Junkie Consulting in Fayetteville.
The Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce's NWA Tech Council hosted the conference. While students worked on their presentations, business people took part in workshops on topics such as competitive pricing and basic bookkeeping.
The collaboration between students and business leaders demonstrated at the conference represents a concept the Bentonville School District hopes to emulate in its Ignite program the district is starting this fall.
Ignite is the name the district has adopted for a program modeled on the Center for Advanced Professional Studies started in the Kansas City, Kan., area. It allows students the chance to learn and gain skills while working closely with local employers, said Michael Poore, district superintendent.
"We would like nothing more than a situation where by the time our students graduate, you could employ them," Poore said.
Ignite will launch with an information technology solutions class of 15 students. Wal-Mart also will offer students internships as part of Ignite, Poore said. The district plans to expand the program to include additional career paths.
Northwest Arkansas Community College, Mercy Hospital, the University of Arkansas Global Campus and Fellowship Bible Church were among the other organizations that submitted real-life problems they have experienced to the students at the conference.
The college asked for guidance on a quicker method of determining whether students applying for enrollment live inside or outside the college's millage district. That matters because those who live in the district pay less in tuition than those who live outside of it.
It's difficult to pinpoint for certain applicants whether they live inside or outside the district, said Jamie Johnston, associate director of admissions and advising.
That problem was assigned to a group of five Rogers High School students mentored by Andy Mayes, director of technology for the Bentonville School District.
"I believe it's a business problem potentially with a technology solution," Mayes told the group. "I know what it is, but I'm not going to tell you."
Mayes did, however, give ample guidance to the students as they crafted their presentation on what they called a tuition calculator app, which would tie into a geographic information system and inform college students how much their tuition would be based on where they live.
Bill Akins, chairman of the NWA Tech Council, said he was impressed by all the presentations the student groups devised in less than four hours.
"The effort has been unbelievable today," Akins said. "You pulled off amazing things here."
NW News on 06/24/2015