SCU Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Partners With Junior Achievement

Business Wire, Dec 2, 2002

Business & News Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 2002

Students learn the spirit of entrepreneurship at Junior

Achievement's first Student Company

Competition in Silicon Valley on Dec. 4

Five local high school teams will present their Junior Achievement student companies' products, business plans and entrepreneurial challenges this week to a panel of Silicon Valley's most dynamic business leaders.

This event is hosted by Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business and the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a natural match of interests as well as mission.

The student teams come from local high schools using Junior Achievement Economics, a semester-long curriculum for high school seniors that incorporates the development and operation of real businesses, with real profits and stock options.

The Dec. 4 event at SCU is the first such competition of Junior Achievement of Silicon of Silicon Valley & Monterey Bay, with awards and scholarships to the top teams. The goal is to have several student company teams compete each spring and fall.

"We are pleased to bring these outstanding students together with some of Silicon Valley's most dynamic business leaders," said Elaine Curran, president of JA of Silicon Valley & Monterey Bay, Inc. "The interaction between students and judges will be very insightful to both. We look forward to starting a great tradition that will help Silicon Valley develop its next generation of workforce and business leaders."

"Junior Achievement is an integral part of the free enterprise system," said Patrick Guerra, executive director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. "There is no mystery why America has such a creative, resourceful and resilient economy: It begins with lessons learned early on in our educational process."

"As a portal to Silicon Valley, those of us at the Center and at the Leavey School of Business are proud to join with JA to make a positive impact on young people," he said.

The JA student companies will be assessed by a panel of judges that includes several laureates from Junior Achievement's Business Hall of Fame, including: Maryles Casto of Casto Travel; Ray Demere, Hewlett Packard retiree; Papken der Torsion of NANmetrics; Mike Fox, Sr. of M.E. Fox and Co.; Steve Kirsch of Propel; Boris Limpkin, Stanford University Professor Emeritus; Dan Perez of Selection; John Sobrato, Sr. of Sobrato Development Company; and Cliff Swenson of Carl N. Swenson Company.

Barry Posner, dean of the SCU Leavey School of Business, will kick off the Student Company Competition, and SCU marketing professor Fred Hoar, retired CEO of Miller Shandwick, will be the master of ceremonies. The Silicon Valley Business Journal is a co-sponsor.

In addition to the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, SCU student organizations -- Women in Business and Accelerated Cooperative Education (ACE), and the University's Retail Management Institute -- volunteer with Junior Achievement to teach in local elementary schools using JA classroom curricula. Several JA Business Hall of Fame Laureates are SCU alumni, including SCU president Paul Locatelli, S.J., and John Sobrato, Sr.

Media: To obtain information about the times and locations of the company competition, call SCU Media Relations, at 408-396-4491.

About Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay

Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley & Monterey Bay is the premier K-12 economic education organization, serving approximately 27,500 school children. Celebrating its 50th anniversary in Silicon Valley, JA nationwide is the largest and fastest-growing non-profit economic education organization, annually teaching 6 million elementary, middle school and high school students in over 110 countries. Junior Achievement's mission is to ensure that every child in America has a fundamental understanding of the free enterprise system. Junior Achievement uses community and business role models to bring its classroom programs to life. In multiple classroom visits, these volunteers use their experience and knowledge to help students become workforce-ready by applying critical thinking and school skills to solving real-world problems. For more information and to get involved, visit www.jascc.org or call 408-988-8915.

About the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business established the Center for Innovation and Enterpreneurship in 1998. The center delivers a uniquely Santa Clara stamp on the study of innovation and entrepreneurship -- blending research and thought on leadership, applied ethics and a focus on the process of innovation. Located at the center of the most fertile proving ground for new technologies -- Silicon Valley -- the center involves both graduate and undergraduate business school students, working with faculty in research in a variety of disciplines.

About The Leavey School of Business

The Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University began in 1926, and was one of the first business schools in the country to receive national accreditation. It undergraduate business program has been recognized as one of the best in California, and it MBA program has been ranked in the nation's top 20 part-time programs. More than 80 percent of its 1,043 MBA students are working professionals in Silicon Valley. For more information, see www.business.scu.edu.