The entrepreneurial spirit will be strong at the Langley Events Centre next month, as dozens of Langley School District students will show off their creativity while also putting their sales and marketing skills to the test at the annual I.D.E.A. Summit, which is scheduled for Tuesday, May 7 from 9:15 a.m. until 3 p.m at the Langley Events Centre.
Now in its fourth year, the I.D.E.A. Summit (I.D.E.A. stands for Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship and Atruism) is a marketplace where students across the District, show off items they've created, and market them for sale to visiting students and community members.
Student booths will show off creations such as birdhouses, handmade stuffies, decorative houseware items, handmade Barbie clothes and more. One year, a Grade 9 student designed a new, safer way to transport baby chicks, and now has a patent on her design, and last year, one student created 3D-printed beehives aimed to help grow the bee population.
"Students have an opportunity to take something from a blank page, create something brand new, ideate, design, change it, morph it, and come out with a product at the end," said district principal Kendra Simonetto.
"And then they create a business plan to be able to sell it, to be able to market it, has taken students to a whole other realm of the possibilities of what they are capable of."
This year, I.D.E.A. Summit organizers have thrown a new challenge at participants - they must create their products using recycled or upcycled materials. As well, students have a cap on how much money they can spend creating and marketing their ideas.
Organizers "are really excited about" the new aspects of this year's event, Simonetto said.
"With the use of recycled items or upcycled items, students really have to think carefully about how they can redo or recreate something from something that was old and used," she added.
Students who sell their wares at the I.D.E.A. Summit are selected after impressing their teachers at smaller entrepreneur fairs at their respective schools.
"It's such a rich experiential learning opportunity for students to engage in. Even students as young as nine years old are getting this great experience," Simonetto.
For more on the I.D.E.A. Summit, click here.
