CIBER Hosts Local High-School Students for Entrepreneurship Workshop

For two weeks at the end of June and early July, the Smith CIBER organized a workshop titled “So You Want to be an Entrepreneur?” for area high school students. In this pilot program, rising seniors reviewed the basics of business and entrepreneurship and reinforced what they learned in lectures with site visits in the Washington, DC area.

The program was led by Guillermo Rivero, co-founder of Root Change - a mission driven social organization working to drive innovation in social, economic, and environmental development across the globe. He shared his extensive business and entrepreneurial experience with the high school participants.

The students traveled to a number of local businesses and organizations during the program, including to Honest Tea, Ashoka, Occasion Caterers, the Small Business Development Center, the Technology Advancement Program, the International Trade Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Students listened to guest speakers from the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, the Center for Social Value Creation, and numerous professors from the Smith School of Business. Through these presentations and visits, students gained a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation, and how they might use this newfound knowledge in starting their own businesses in the future.

The program took place June 27-July 11, and the participants were area high school students who had been in an introductory high school entrepreneurship class this past school year.