BRITISH COLUMBIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
How BCIT is helping high school students develop business leadership

by Amy Chen

^{The team from North Burnaby Secondary School won first place in the Triple Bottom Line Case Competition.}

In collaboration with the Burnaby School District, BCIT's School of Business, Enactus, and Education Support and Innovation hosted the first annual Triple Bottom Line High Schools Business Case Competition for high school students to hone their business and sustainability leadership. This year's competition took place in October and saw 50 high school students from five Burnaby secondary schools, including Moscrop, Burnaby Mountain, Burnaby Central, Burnaby North, and Burnaby South.

What is the Triple Bottom Line Case Competition?

This competition was started in response to a need from the Burnaby School District for high school students to learn about the triple bottom line framework while acquiring skills for professional business cases and receiving mentorship from post-secondary students in the field.

^{Another team from North Burnaby Secondary School took home second place.}

Participating high school students receive three weekly 2-hour mentorship sessions with BCIT Enactus and School of Business students. During these sessions, high school students learn about the role of social enterprise in our community and on the importance of using sustainable marketing practices in business. The skills and knowledge acquired during this intensive mentorship are then applied in the fourth week to prepare for the final case championship.

This year's final case competition took place on November 2 and was based on a tourism social enterprise, G Adventures. Each of the participating secondary schools provided two teams of five students between grades 10 to 12. On the day of the competition, all 10 teams were placed in an isolated preparation room with their Enactus mentors for a period of 2-hours. They then presented their marketing recommendations for the case study in front of five judges from the BCIT School of Business.

This year's winning team

^{The team from Burnaby Central Secondary School came in third place.}

The top three winners of the competition each received an award to pursue their post-secondary studies in a full-time BCIT School of Business program of their choice.  The first team, North Burnaby Secondary School, won the first prize of a $5,000. The second team, also from North Burnaby Secondary School, won the second prize of $2,500 and finally, the third team from Burnaby Central Secondary School won the third prize of $1,500.

A big thank you to the Enactus mentors, the School of Business judges, Joe Freeburn, David Tikkanen, Morgan Westc--

ott, Enactus students Brianna Del Maestro and Brendan Banks, the staff  who helped with the logistics,  Andrew Cao, Calvin Mah, Norma Sheane, and Sarah Chanway.  You have all made the mentorship and competition a memorable experience for all participating high school students.