Entrepreneurship in School

Kempsville Business and Entrepreneurship Academy professors and students join the show to talk about raising money, persistence, and inspiration.   On August 9, 2009, a new show hit the airwaves on ABC. What no one expected was how popular the show would become with families. Shark Tank. I (Zack Miller) met one of the hosts (sharks) on the show in 2015, Daymond John, and when I asked him about this question: "Did Shark Tank make entrepreneurship popular?", he skimmed around the answer and said it's always been here, but now more people are seeing the opportunity. In an off camera conversation he mentioned how families and their young children were the most popular viewing demographic.    Knowing that, it's no surprise to see that Virginia Beach wanted to jump on the proverbial bandwagon and introduce entrepreneurship to the classroom.    So, this begs the question. Can entrepreneurship be taught? And at what age is too soon?   Insert Meghan Timlin and Ashley Houcins, two of the minds behind the program that launched in 2016 after a year of planning, pivoting, modeling and whatever other business jargon words you can think of.    Unlike an MBA or an incubator program. This program was designed for high school students. To get access, students have to apply and up to 125 can be accepted per school year.    Insert 2020, where all kinds of madness were introduced and forced this program to "pivot" and move towards a more online (exclusively online at this point) approach.    Tim Ryan, lead man at Startwheel and Zack Miller, author of Anomaly, welcomed #TeamKempsville to the Fervent Four show to discuss the origins, the madness, pitches, Pharrell Williams and new ideas.    Meghan Timlin, Kempsville Entrepreneurship and Business Academy Coordinator, Virginia Beach Schools   Ashley Houchins, Entrepreneurship teacher at Kempsville   Evan Nied, who is a current junior in our program and founder of Planting Shade which is a non-profit (he is also working on another business through Ashley's class currently)   TT Wills & My'Anna Williams, two recent graduates from the program who started a non-profit organization called BCI and have run this non-profit for the past two summers, they also are our students who pitched their business idea to Pharrell Williams when he was in town two years ago for Something in the Water.   https://khsentrepreneurshipacademy.weebly.com/   The main theme of this episode isn't about teaching entrepreneurship, rather to think more entrepreneurially.    The overall goal of the Entrepreneurship and Business Academy is to provide students the business skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in any career related fields of study in post-secondary education and in the workforce. Specific academy objectives include the following:   Students will:   ● successfully complete a sequential program of study that focuses on specific skills, knowledge and technology in the fields of entrepreneurship, business information technology and corporate finance. ● have opportunities to earn an Associate's degree/post-secondary credit. ● exceed the objectives of Virginia Beach City Public Schools curricula and Commonwealth of Virginia Standards of Learning tests. ● participate in job shadowing, mentoring, and/or internship programs that extend, enrich, and refine student learning and create linkages with the academic and business communities. ● complete a long-term project through an internship/mentorship experience with a culminating presentation in the senior year featuring an in-depth study of an issue of related concern to their related industry and present ideas/solutions as viable options to address the issue to a panel of business and community leaders.