Speaker 4/14 ELC Team

This is the second year that the Santa Clara Rotary Club has sponsored and participated in the Enterprise Leadership Conference (ELC). The Rotary Clubs of Campbell, Saratoga and, Sunnyvale are also sponsors and participates in the three day event that is held at the Asilomar Conference Center in Monterey, CA. This year the conference dates were March 30-April 1. The purpose of the conference is to enhance the leadership skills of the students through a working introduction to the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of establishing a business in the free enterprise system.

ELC is about giving students the opportunity to understand what is involved in starting, managing and growing a business. It is for students that have an entrepreneurial spirit or feel that they would like to have their own business some day. Only high school juniors can apply of the conference because at this point in the educational career they still have time to make informed decisions about the rest of their high school career and future educational choices.

This year 48 students were selected to attend the conference. The students are divided into 8 teams. The goal for each team is to create and present a business plan. The plan must include the product or service the company will offer, who the officers of the company will be, details of the sales and marketing plan, a competitive analysis of the product or service, a financial plan and revenue/cost projection, and finally a human resources plan. At the end of the conference each team is given 10 minutes to present their business plan to a panel of judges. Each team member must participate in the presentation and each team is judged.

What you will hear today, among other things, is the presentation one of the 2011 ELC teams gave at the conference.