The Entrepreneurship club, founded by Shota Sato, aims to teach the aspects of starting a business and pitching a business to high school students through competitions and going over business startup topics such as product development, financing, feasibility, and logistics. The club has created a team of 4 as a new start for the year, highly motivated. The club looks forward to expanding to two to three groups in the future, allowing more students to gain experience.
Last year, two members of the entrepreneurship club, founded by Shota Sato, participated in a competition called the Conrad Challenge. The Conrad Challenge is an annual, international innovation and entrepreneurship competition where competitors (students) create solutions to global problems through science, technology, and business. Shota Sato (Junior) and Yunseong Oh (Junior), the two participants of the Conrad Challenge from St. Mary’s, were awarded the Conrad Innovator Award, a top ~10% distinction. The two developed EverLink, a solar-powered emergency communicator that utilizes the P3NC Protocol for two-way messaging without the need for Wi-Fi. “We learned how some parts of our pitch were not competition level, such as the financing and feasibility to be profitable,” Shota Sato said.
This year, the Entrepreneurship club is looking forward to participating in two major entrepreneurship competitions, the Blue Ocean Competition and the Diamond Challenge. The Blue Ocean Competition is a student pitch contest where individuals or teams present innovative business ideas that open new market spaces. The Diamond Challenge, organized by the University of Delaware, is a global competition where high school students design original business or social ventures to address real-world problems. Their goal is to make the Top 100 pitchers for the Blue Ocean competition and be a finalist for the Diamond Challenge.