Young JoCo entrepreneurs offer up their ‘next great ideas’

Young entrepreneurs got their chance to make a pitch for some very real funding at the Shawnee Mission School District’s The Next Great Idea Pitch Competition April 27. Three winners each received a $1,000 cash prize but are also eligible for $1,500 more in grants over the next year to fund their ideas.

The competition, started in 2021, is part of the district’s annual Research and Development Forum. Approximately 30 students applied to the competition this year, and nine finalists made it to Saturday’s big pitch. Any student in the district is eligible to compete.

Because the students don’t necessarily have experience in entrepreneurship or pitching ideas, the program offers mentorship from local business people, courtesy of the district’s partnership with Startland, a nonprofit inspired by its “starters”: innovators, creators and entrepreneurs.

Students had the option to attend as many of the three virtual practice sessions as they wanted. The final pitches were three minutes each, followed by a two-minute question period with the judges.

“It’s really been fun to watch, because some students will come to every practice session, and they really listen intently and work in between each practice session to take that feedback that they received and tweak or further their presentation or their idea,” said Leigh Anne Neal, the district’s chief of early childhood and sustainability. “You can really see that growth between those sessions.”

Startland also put together a coaching guide with resources on how to structure a pitch.

“We’re basically the connector of the school competition to entrepreneurs and community partners, which can help make the experience feel real for the students,” said Verónica Alvidrez, director of youth and community programs for Startland Education.

In the two previous years, the contest mostly drew elementary applicants.

“I really enjoy that it’s a K-12 competition,” Alvidrez said. “It allows younger minds to be part of this process. Many times, we’re brought in at the middle and high school level. Seeing how what we do can be applied to younger audiences and how elementary age students respond — it really shows that innovation has no limits on age.”

This year it flipped, with more applications coming from middle and high school students. A marketing class at Shawnee Mission East helped with the informational materials promoting the contest.

For winning entrant Audrey Jennings, a sophomore at Shawnee Mission West, getting the prize is a chance to fund a project she was working on before she’d ever heard of the contest. Her entry, The Dot Spot, focuses on creating about seven free period supply pantries throughout her school, housed in lockers.

Although there are free period products currently available at school, Audrey said they’re only in two locations and don’t provide the variety of items students need for different body types. She connected with the Women in Leadership club at school to start developing her idea.

That was all in the works when she found out about the competition — the day before entries were due.

“We had the plan to create the period pantry, and then this came along, and I was like, ‘That would be a great idea to start funding it,’” she said.

Audrey went to two of the provided practice sessions and a run-through.

“It showed me how to be a speaker. They told me, ‘Slow down. Make sure you incorporate these main points, because this is what people are looking for,’” she said.

Another winner, Miles Muehlbach, a seventh-grader from Indian Hills, decided to channel his programming skills into his project, a game meant to enrich math learning for other kids.

“I’ve always thought that these (computer) programs in school were really not fun, and I was just like, ‘What if we had a fun, interactive way to do it while they still get the interactive learning they need?’” he said.

He hopes to eventually make different levels for each unit in a math class. The whole process has been its own learning experience for him.

“I definitely learned how to speak in front of a large crowd, and I’ve learned how to develop a pitch successfully,” Miles said.

Benjamin Walsh, a seventh-grader at Indian Hills Middle School, also received the big prize, as well as the people’s choice award, determined from an online vote. His project was an armband to keep a continuous glucose monitor connected while doing sports.

Another Indian Hills seventh-grader, Lyla Speicher, won the $500 idea of promise award for pitching a browser extension that gives positive affirmations as you work.