Skills for RI Future/PrepareRI
COVID-19 Innovation Challenge
Business Coach
Task: To build viable solutions that address real-world challenges companies and industries have faced as a result of COVID-19. All teams were remote and project culminated into competition for college scholarships.
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Specifics: Coached a virtual team of twenty-two diverse high school student entrepreneurs from around the state of Rhode Island. Their goal was to create a custom micro-enterprise for individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities.
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Outcome: They created revolutionary PPE including: three types of custom masks, a website with disability access, marketing collateral, a business plan and financial reports.
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How I worked with PrepareRI
When working with PrepareRI, my role was to serve as a Business Coach for twenty-two rising high school seniors who were working remotely, via the Microsoft Teams Platform to solve COVID-19 problems. The students were grouped together by interest and hailed from communities all around Rhode Island and most had never met each other.
Each day, I was in service to the group assisting them with evidence based strategies and target approaches to the problems they were facing. We then collaborated to develop an outline with a list of concrete steps to meet their goals. Additonally, I would work diligently to find leaders and mentors in industry and education who could share knowledge and support their mission.
For example, when they designed The Friendly Gown, I invited a fashion professional to join the call. When they were working on marketing strategies, I reached out to a CEO of a national firm that produces videos for businesses and he even offered his services to edit their material. When they needed medical advice, I asked a physician to speak with them, and when they each wanted to discuss their personal future goals and dreams, we worked on that too.
Throughout the entire process, I always felt inspired watching and learning as twenty-two young adults worked together in harmony and unity on a project in for the community. Today, I am still in contact with many of them and have served as a mentor for their high school senior projects.