E Squared and Career Partners, a Winning Combination

Culpeper Star Exponent

Business Monday

Jim Charapich

April 29, 2013

You may have noticed the www.EsquaredCulpeper.com signs over Main Street in Culpeper. The final competition for E Squared is May 2nd at the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors room. We are very proud of the E Squared program as it brings education and business together to help inspire young entrepreneurs. Our high school students have an opportunity to compete with their ideas and business plans to win $5,000 in scholarship money for post secondary education per the rules of the program.

The E Squared program evolves every year with a continuous improvement process. The teamwork with the educators and the business community is a critical strength of the program. At the core of the program is Career Partners, Inc. who takes the initiative to raise the funds needed to support the scholarship dollars for the program. Considering the teams that compete in the program can be from 4-6 students, scholarship funds raised are significant, equating to between $20,000 and $30,000 in scholarship awards each year.

 

 

The students begin the E Squared journey in January with a kick off meeting at which they discover who their team colleagues will be. At that point they are guided through a process of business development during the school semester that includes collaboration with the educators and local businesses. There are over 60 businesses that are involved in the coaching and judging process. Having the businesses involved in helping to educate our students has significant dual benefits. Obviously, having the students learn directly from businesses is a big benefit. In addition, there is a great benefit to the business in seeing the emerging workforce and helping to contribute to their workplace skills.

The teams went through a semi-final competition on April 18th. There are six teams that have moved on to the final competition. There is a rigorous judging ruberic that is used in judging the students. In addition there are a number of judges that score the teams on facets of their presentation and business plan composition. The judges scores are combined to determine the winner. The fact that students make presentations to sharp business leaders is impressive. They are required to make presentations to pitch their idea. Their public speaking skills and presentation are a big part of the scoring.

Congratulations to the students that will compete this Thursday morning. Congratulations to the educators for your efforts. We know that they are often above and beyond the normal course of a day. Thank you to the businesses that invest time, energy, and financial support to make the program so meaningful. Thank you to the Culpeper Star Exponent for your generous coverage.

Thank you to the Culpeper Media Network for the live coverage of the event. Tune into Comcast Channel 10 or www.CulpeperMedia.org for live coverage of the E Squared Final Competiton this Thursday May 2nd beginning at 8:30 AM.