Raavee Singh has a budding entrepreneur in the family after her son, Arnav, discovered a penchant for business.
The Grade 5 student at Donna Gabriel Elementary was selling Key Buddies, key holder plaques that were among the diverse array of student-made items being sold at the IDEA Summit on May 7.
“I want to be a businessman,” the kidpreneur told the Langley Advance Times. “I’m going to expand this business.”
He was among the approximately 100 students in Grades 4 to 9 from various Langley School District schools earned the opportunity to be at the May 7 summit at the Langley Events Centre.
Now in its fourth year, the I.D.E.A. Summit (innovation, design, entrepreneurship and altruism) was a marketplace where students, showed off items they’ve created, and marketed them for sale to visiting students and community members.
This year, organizers threw a new challenge at participants – their products must use recycled or upcycled materials. As well, students had a cap on how much money they can spend creating and marketing their ideas.
Arnav made 64 of his key holder plaques and was glad they were selling well. He had no doubts but mom was another story.
His mom explained that she felt some pressure, unsure whether the items would sell after all his work making them, but her son wasn’t the only one who learned through this experience.
“What will happen if he doesn’t sell anything? That’s the kind of pressure I felt. But overall I really like this idea,” she said. “…I actually realized he’s actually got very good sales skills. He’s very outspoken… It’s actually helped me to know his abilities and what he’s good at.”
Throughout the summit, large groups of students from the various schools came through to check out the merchandise. The best summit sellers sold out of their stock in each of the rounds of selling. In all 3,500 Langley students toured through.
Abby at Abby’s Cuties made 60 stuffed dinos, leaving the event with her one demonstrator dino.
“I sold out about in the first 10 minutes of each round,” she said. “I didn’t know [how well they would sell].”
Judges selected five students to make pitches to experts during the summit.
Lynn Fripps Elementary student Adhiraj made 73 magnetic toys called Magnikars. Save for some stuff from the dollar store, all the components, including dead AA batteries and bottle caps, were recycled with dad scrounging through bins at the recycling depot for parts.
The students must allocate a portion of the money they make to charity. Adhiraj chose BC Children’s Hospital.
Another student, Hugh, said his favourite part of the summit was the selling. His battery operated boats (Hugh’s Dream Cruisers) were made with recycled materials and were popular with buyers. He devoted his donations to the Make a Wish Foundation.
“I wanted to use it for something valuable, something that helps people,” said Hugh.
Organizer Kendra Simonetta couldn’t resist the pull of the young entrepreneurs. The district principal couldn’t say how much she spent.
“Too much,” she chuckled. “It’s hard to say not to anybody, isn’t it?”
She noted that this event requires months of planning and the efforts of many departments within the district as well as business people in the community who act as mentors and volunteer to give their time and feedback.
“This project evolves and changes as every year goes by,” she explained. “It takes many hands to make this possible… to asking students about what we can do differently to make the project work better for them.”
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