Sixth Graders Join with Valley Leaders to Help Japan

It was a typical business pitch in Silicon Valley: entrepreneurs presenting their business plans, impressing the clients with animated ad campaigns. Except these entrepreneurs were sixth graders from Redwood City.

Elementary school students at  got a rare chance today to rub elbows with powerful local business executives, and receive professional advice on projects that will eventually benefit victims of the Japan earthquake.

Members of the BizWorld Board of Directors visited Jennifer Bruzzone's 6th grade class in Redwood City to see students present business plans for a fictional bracelet company.

The students made the bracelets, pitched their business plans, complete with animated ad campaigns, sold their bracelets to school mates using fake money and then took professional advice from Sillicon Valley business leaders on the experience.

"It was very exciting," said Keir Beadling, CEO of Mavericks Surf Ventures. "It's great to see how inventive the kids are. This was a lot of fun."

Bruzzone's class is planning to take the lessons learned today and apply them in a school fundraiser, when they will sell the same bracelets. But next time, the sales will be made to the community for real money, and the proceeds will be sent to benefit victims of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11.

"This is a very real world way of learning," said Laurin Toegemann, the school's vice principal. "And factoring in the effort to help Japan puts a lot of responsibility on the kids."

Four different groups of sixth grade students made bracelets and competed against one another in selling the string jewelry to their fourth grade schoolmates.

Striking Strings, the company that generated the most revenue, capitalized on the mania attached to the San Francisco Giants sweeping the Bay Area in the wake of the team's winning the World Series last season.

The company's orange and black bracelet, representing the Giants colors, sold out in mere minutes.

Alec Gembala, a fourth grader and customer, said he preferred the Giants bracelet above all the others offered, and appreciated the creative lesson offered.

"It's good to get to see what people made and how hard they worked," said Gembala, flaunting his new Giants bracelet, one of the last sold before Striking Strings ran out of the day's hot commodity.

Sam Winlsow, 11, a vice president on the Striking Strings team, said he enjoyed the business building lesson more than the normal math curriculum.

"This was a real world simulation, and it taught us some valuable skills," he said.

Some of the lessons went beyond what much of the curriculum intended. One company, BFF Bracelets, allegedly infringed on the patent for the Giants bracelet, which was held by Striking Strings.

In an effort to work around the restrictions of the copyright, but still capitalize on the product's popularity, BFF Bracelets offered a similar orange and black bracelet. But their version was braided in a different fashion, taking advantage of an available loophole .

"This is amazing," said April Bond, Education Director for BizWorld. "To see the program like this is a new experience I couldn't have imagined."

Bruzzone was inspired to integrate the lesson into her class after visiting a seminar put on by BizWorld. The non-profit company has developed a curriculum  that makes complex elements of business easily digestible for elementary students.

BizWorld is a San Francisco based foundation that aspires to teach entrepreneurial  programs to students across the globe.

Prior to today's visit, members of the BizWorld Board of Directors had never together seen the program's lessons in action, in the classroom.

"I thought they were very creative," said Board Chairman Harry Gould, who is also the Senior Vice President of Informatica Systems.