By GREGORY ZELLER //
Hundreds of Long Island-based student-entrepreneurs will converge at LIU Post next week for a two-day interactive tradeshow where nothing is real and everything in on the line.
Welcome to Virtual Enterprises International’s 2023 Long Island Regional Conference and Exhibition, where the businesses are simulated but the effort is genuine, and significant. More than 2,000 students are slated to showcase their imaginary businesses – invented by young innovators, fostered by professional mentors – Jan. 10 and 11 at LIU Post’s Pratt Rec Center in Greenvale.
At last count, nearly 100 simulated businesses created by students from 80 Long Island schools were expected to showcase in the two-day tradeshow, which includes actual trade-floor booths, valuable coaching by successful businesspeople and a virtual economy built specifically to track each team’s impresario successes.
The regional show – ultimately, a test of the commercial mettle of each team’s product or service, plus team members’ sales and organizational skills – includes daily competitions for Best Business Plan, Best Sales Pitch, Best Exhibition Booth and more. Also at stake is a shot at VE’s National Business Plan Competition, scheduled for April.
Musa Ali Shama: Transformative experiences.
Opal, a simulated “circular fashion” startup founded by Westhampton Beach High School students, captured top honors in last year’s competition. Also performing well was Doze, a simulated all-natural sleep remedy concocted by students from Southold Junior/Senior High School.
More than 100 corporate and collegiate volunteers are expected to participate in next week’s two-day event, which further challenges students to set business budgets, form supply chains, market their wares to their peers and even transact using “credit cards” issued by a faux “central bank.”
It all looks and feels remarkably real, while providing student participants with professional guidance and a top career-readiness experience – Job No. 1 for New York City-based Virtual Enterprises International, an educational nonprofit leveraging hands-on, task-based curricula that help students try out potential careers and develop in-demand workforce skills.
Since forming in 1996, VEI has served nearly a quarter-million nationwide students, with a particular emphasis on under-resourced communities.
That’s a good start, according to Virtual Enterprises International President Musa Ali Shama, who anticipates another exciting National Business Plan Competition in 2023.
“We’ve transformed over 200,000 students into business leaders and professionals,” Shama noted. “It is both exciting and humbling to know that we’ve helped students develop the skills and competencies needed to be college- and career-ready.”
