This year, Dr. Patrick Marcus, was invited to be a guest speaker at the McGuire Summer Academy Program at the University of Arizona. The McGuire Summer Academy Program is a program designed to help young people cultivate their entrepreneurial skills. Students from various high schools are invited to live on the campus grounds for one week. Throughout the week, students work in teams and develop business ventures from an idea to a fully-fledged pitch. At the end of the week, students compete in front of a panel and pitch their business venture ideas. Afterwards, the winning team is awarded 300 dollars.
Throughout the week each team would walk through a new aspect of the business venture process with the help of a guest speaker. After each speech, participants from each team were allowed a one-on-one session with these speakers. From there, they would receive the insight and feedback they needed to strengthen their lean business canvas. Although these students had only one week in this program, the skills they learned encompassed a great deal of subjects from business finance, to social networking, to the art of the business pitch.
Dr. Marcus participated as a mentor and guest speaker throughout this week. “I’ve participated in many university programs in the past,” says Dr. Marcus, “so I was really excited when I was asked to come back and help out. You never know the kind of talent that can come from your own hometown, and these kids certainly have got talent in spades.”
According to Dr. Marcus, we can expect to see some truly innovative ideas from theses students. Well done to the participants of this program. We can’t wait to see and hear more from you in the future.
Check out the video below to see last year’s participants in the McGuire Summer Academy.
