2017 YIBI Youth Business Leadership Training (YBLT) Session Two Conclusion, June 24th

The second session of the 2017 Youth Business Leadership Training (YBLT) wrapped up this Saturday (June 24th) with outstanding results. Held in Fremont, the all day camp ran through Monday (June 19th) to Friday (June 23th), culminating with the semi-finals competition held at Sofia University in Palo Alto on Saturday (June 24th). Lectures over the week covered everything related about how to start a startup from financial planning to presentation and public speaking techniques, which the students then applied to their own pitches. Throughout the past week, each of the five teams has worked diligently each day, perfecting their business pitches and exploring the different aspects of business and marketing. Their hard work and growth could be seen clearly in the presentations they delivered in front of judges at the semifinals on Saturday.

The Teams pitched products that utilized a myriad of different innovative technologies and strived to solve many different everyday frustrations. From Outfitize (Chloe Chan, Cathy Wang, Josh Zhang, Anika Huang, Joanna Zhu), an app which helps create schedule the perfect outfits for any occasion, to Speedphene (Ryan Chan, Alex Liu, Alvin Zhu, Chloe Wang), which uses groundbreaking procedures to efficiently produce graphene and graphene batteries, to SchoolCrate (William Gu, Jessica Yu, Leqi Zeng, Tony Du), a personalized monthly delivery box that supplements and guides a student’s education, to TravelParrot (Karina Jang, David Qiu, Albert Dong, Sophie Cui, Caton Zhu), a app that boasts not only more accurate translations but also trip planning suggestions, to Temperashirt (Pauline Rogers, Claire Ma, Christine Li, Harrison Xu), which applies PCM technology to produce fashionable, temperature-controlling clothing, each pitch showed impressive creativity and ambition. With a tie for second place, our three finalists from session two were SchoolCrate, Outfitize, and TemperaShirt. Although not all the teams qualified for the Youth International Business Initiative (YIBI) Grand Conference in August, every team showed impressive talent and dedication at semifinals. It was amazing to watch how much each student grew and improved over the course of the week! Although they were pushed create professional pitches in just a short span of time, all teams performed admirably under our high demands.

It was a difficult week, but we hope the camp was still a fun and memorable learning experience for all the students. For the teams that did advance, we look forward to seeing their further development and performance in the final round. Thank you to YIBI for providing TA for helping these training classes, including YIBI Executive officers, Erika Yang of Granada High, Kaitlyn Wang of Granada High, and Nancy Tong of UC Riverside. In addition, thank you to YIBI Saratoga Branch Officers Elaine Zhai of Harker School and Alex Zhai of Harker School for helping out with Semi-Finals.

Special thanks to the judges and our guest lecturers that participated in this session of the 2017 YBLT.

Reported by Kaitlyn Wang