On Tuesday, April 16, Great Bend Middle School students Callie Umphres and Sydney Bailey participated in the Kansas Entrepreneurship Competition (KEC) held at K-State. They emerged as finalists and won a significant cash prize. Additionally, they each received $50 for completing a Feasibility 101 mini-course before the competition.
Their business, Aerial View, combines the capabilities of a drone with high-quality photography and videography. Callie and Sydney spent countless hours learning how to operate the drone and improve the composition of their photos and videos. They registered their business as a conceptual business since they cannot legally fly a drone for commercial purposes without a remote pilot license, which they cannot obtain until they are sixteen.
Consequently, they cannot accept payment at this time. However, they are taking up jobs and working for free to build their business portfolio while anticipating business upgrades and changes to compete again next year.
Before the KEC competition, Callie and Sydney won the Barton County Youth Entrepreneurship Competition (YEC), which automatically qualified them to participate in Manhattan at the state-level competition.
Having competed in the YEC competition last year, they knew the amount of work it would take to create a business that could take them to the state level. As soon as school started in the fall, they began developing their business, writing an executive summary, and completing a thorough financial analysis. They also put together an informational booth for a trade show that was open to the public at both competitions.
Unlike the YEC competition, which had a single presentation to multiple judges, the KEC competition consisted of three separate boardroom presentations with two different judges in each room. They had to spend ten minutes in each boardroom presenting and answering the judges' questions.