Conway students rank 2nd for best business plan at YES 2.0 | Business

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (March 1, 2012) – March Madness-level excitement came early for several high school students today as the winners of the 2nd annual Youth Entrepreneur Showcase 2.0 (Y.E.S. 2.0) were announced.  Y.E.S. 2.0 is a statewide business plan competition for ninth to twelfth grade students that is sponsored by the Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation (AEAF), an affiliate of the Arkansas Capital Corporation.  Today’s winners were notified at noon via live stream from the Arkansas Capital Corporation headquarters near Little Rock’s River Market.  They included:

Most Innovative Product or Service

1st Place:  Fair Trade America, Roe Home School

Team Member:  Jeremiah Moore

Advisor:  Sarah Moore

Product Summary:  Fair Trade America is a company dedicated to producing quality, handcrafted goods that are made in America by underprivileged Americans.

2nd Place: Community Stock, Inc., Little Rock Central High School

Team Members: Zen Tang, Andrew Suffridge, Holly Wren, Chandler Smith

Advisor:  Mary Fleming

Product Summary:  An investing system that provides customers with an efficient, reliable means for investing that is available anytime through the Internet. The system offers prospective investors the feedback and opinions of fellow investors. This is done by combining the best of the worlds of crowd sourcing, electronic investing, and risk management through integration of aggregate user input with an exceptional web interface that is accommodating to both novice investors and professionals alike.

3rd Place:  X-G.O.A.L., Little Rock Central High School

Team Member:  Ashley Winston

Advisor:  Mary Fleming

Product Summary:  “Chemical X” is a pleasant-smelling, sanitizing chemical that should be used to sanitize and disinfect outside trashcans – one of the smelliest places that contains germs and different kinds of opportunities to get diseases.

4th Place:  Peoples’ Lives Worthwhile, Little Rock Central High School

Team Member: Miriam Vazquez

Advisor:  Mary Fleming

Product Summary:  The company’s newest product is called the Word Corrector. It corrects all misspelled words that are written on paper, giving the writer the correct spelling on a side panel. The design of the Word Corrector is in the shape of a pencil that can switch the point to a pen.

Best Business Plan

1st Place:  Community Stock, Inc., Little Rock Central High School

Team Members: Zen Tang, Andrew Suffridge, Holly Wren, Chandler Smith

Advisor:  Mary Fleming

Product Summary: see previous listing

2nd Place: The Conway App, Conway High School West

Team Members:  Jacob Williams and Johnny Forehand

Advisor:  Mrs. Wells

Product Summary:  The product is an online application that was created to let users know anything they want about Conway, Arkansas, including information about restaurants, movies, upcoming events, and even stores in and around Conway.

3rd Place:  Tiger Innovations, Inc., Little Rock Central High School

Team Members: Nimit Gandhi, Dean Patterson, Mysti Kirkpatrick, Katy Rose, Stephanie West and Katie Fox

Advisor:  Mary Fleming

Product Summary:  AmpEARS is a cordless music player listening device for those who don’t want to hassle with cords and wires on regular earphones. With AmpEARS you can listen to music, without worrying about the inconvenience of getting tangled up with ordinary wires.  The earphones sync to an Ipod or MP3 playing device and can be as far as 20 feet away from the device while still being able to deliver a clear and crisp audio experience unrivaled by its competitors.

(more)4th Place:  The Tech Pad, Little Rock Central High School

Team Members: Kailyn Cooper, Nishita Patel, Keegan Hines, and Trisha Bhattacharyya

Advisor:  Mary Fleming

Product Summary:  This high-tech smart pad is nearly a backpack in a smaller, electronic form, featuring a binder form with a screen on one side and paper on the other for the client’s convenience, as well as a recorder, calculator, scheduler, scanner, and many more things all in one.

Y.E.S. began in 2005 as a collaborative project for middle school students and received so much positive acclaim among students and faculty that a high school equivalent for the program was added in the fall of 2010. 

“We empower entrepreneurs,” Arkansas Capital Corporation C.E.O. C. Sam Walls explained via live stream.  “Our continuum of programs is designated to both ignite the ‘idea’ and keep that flame burning, for the entrepreneurs of today and tomorrow.  This competition attracted teams from all over Arkansas.  I am extremely proud of the participating students – and grateful to their teachers and mentors for spending time outside of the classroom to guide students through the process.”

Awards for the event include:

Most Innovative Product or Service

• 1st Place: Each team member receives $100 and a trophy.
  Advisors receive $500 and a trophy.
• 2nd Place: Each team member receives $75 and a trophy.
  Advisors receive $300 and a trophy.
• 3rd Place: Each team member receives $50 and a trophy.
  Advisors receives $200 and a trophy.
• 4th Place: Each team member receives a trophy.
  Advisors receive $100 and a trophy.

Best Business Plan

• 1st Place: Each team member receives $100 and a trophy.
  Advisors receive $500 and a trophy.
• 2nd Place: Each team member receives $75.00 and a trophy.
• Advisors receive $300 and a trophy.
• 3rd Place: Each team member receives $50 and a trophy.
  Advisors receive $200 and a trophy.
• 4th Place: Each team member receives a trophy.
  Advisors receive $100 and a trophy.

The AEAF oversees the college undergraduate and graduate level business plan competition throughout Arkansas known as the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup.  Additionally, the AEAF hosts the Tri-State Award for the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup winners from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nevada in Las Vegas each year. 

The Arkansas Capital Corporation (ACC) was established in 1957 as a private, non-profit business development corporation that specializes in secured long-term financing to Arkansas’s small and medium size businesses. As one of the state’s largest government lenders, ACC bridges the gap between the level of funding a business needs and what it is able to obtain through traditional financing sources. 

The AEAF is a 501(c)3  non-profit, education focused foundation that empowers budding and seasoned entrepreneurs with programs, resources and events, such as the business plan competitions.  For more information about the Y.E.S. 2.0 competition, the AEAF programs, and/or the Arkansas Capital Corporation, contact Clay Mercer of the ACC at (800) 216-7237 or (501) 374-9247 or cmercer@arcapital.com.