29a

Opportunity:

The opportunity that my venture seeks to take advantage of is need for the parents of highschoolers in Miami to save money on sending their kids to college. I believe in this being a real opportunity because of how much excess time and money children waste because they aren't sure why they are in college. Many students just jump into a major they think they might like and end up either unmotivated or just doing poorly in their classes. The average college student changes their major up to three times before graduating. Nearly 60% of students finish a 4 year degree in 6 years time according to the US Department of Education. If a parent is sending their child to a school like UM, that could mean up to 120,000 dollars wasted.

Because of the nature of my solution revolving around helping kids explore their future major through at least 100 hours of community service (which is required to graduate highschool in Miami). Parents are usually getting their kids community service hours by letting them volunteer at the local pool or library. And because there is no alternative, they usually continue to support their children through college by taking out parent loans. Parents aren't satisfied with how expensive college is to begin with, and they are even more disturbed when they end up having to pay more than what they thought they would. The opportunity lasts as long as Miami parents have kids in highschool.

Innovation:

My innovation will be to connect highschool students with volunteering programs that relate to majors they may want to pursue in college. For example, if they want to pursue political science we would connect them with a voter outreach program. If they wanted to pursue medicine we would connect them with a volunteer program at a local hospital. This would help them to understand the majors they thought they wanted to pursue and help them waste less time in college trying to figure out why they are going to college in the first place. This is how we will save parents in Miami the current stress of finding their kids volunteering hours and the future headache of wasting thousands of dollars in college! My organization would be a nonprofit but to keep the lights on we would charge parents 100 dollars to connect their child with an opportunity. And because highschoolers are busy in the surrounding months, we would only operate for the summer time.

Venture concept:

The experience kids gain in fields they think they are interested in will put them way ahead of the average highschool graduate in terms of knowing what it is they want to do in college. One of the reasons I developed this idea was because I come from a magnet school that had certain tracks for IT and business students. Because of my time in the IT track I was able to determine that it was not something I wanted to pursue in college before even graduating highschool. This is what I want my program to do for kids. In solving this issue for the kids, I will have saved thousands for parents. What's next is making everything official and raising the money to start it all. Becuase know I would have wasted lots of money pursuing IT if not for my experience in highschool. 

As a nonprofit I would seek to keep staff and operating time small. My biggest weakness would be the fact that my competitors range from the local library, to super expensive summer camps offering expansive teaching and experience in what field said student is interested in. But I hope my organization would serve as a middle ground for parents willing to pay for a service like mines, but who cannot afford the expensive summer camp options available. My secret sauce is having worked for fundraisers with my mother throughout my youth and knowing the Miami Dade public county school district very well. In five years I see the organization helping many students to find their paths, and creating volunteering opportunities that may have not existed before for certain students with more unique future career plans!