On November 17, 2023, the New Venture Development class at Hanover Central High School attended The Innovation Hub at Valparaiso University. Their mission is “To foster collaboration and sharing of ideas among students, faculty, staff, alumni, businesses, and community members by offering educational programs, speaker series, and expanding initiatives that support the creation and development of new opportunities while also creating an empathetic culture that utilizes the design thinking process to identify problems and seek innovative solutions.” This event included 4 internal and external speakers that allowed our 6 students of the New Venture class to dive into the world of entrepreneurship with experienced entrepreneurs and fellow students from other schools.

Daniel Maguire is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Valparaiso University. He joined the university after 25 years of experience in the field, specializing in design production. He talked about prototyping and encompassing hardware and software design. He was so passionate about guiding the students to develop a technical understanding and intuition.

Cary Conrad is a serial entrepreneur and engineer extraordinaire. He is the President of SilverSky, a cloud-based cybersecurity platform that helps businesses monitor firewalls and automate remediation processes to handle threats. He joined us via Zoom to talk to the students about the “golden rule of finance,” which means “he who has the gold, makes the rules.” He expressed that if you can become successful, life and its rules become way easier. 

Don Wettrick is the president and founder of STARTedUP Foundation, which is a nonprofit that provides entrepreneurial events, training, and seed funding for young entrepreneurs. He broke the students into groups, splitting up the schools, to work with other students. He has the groups identify problems in their town and come up with a solution to the issue. Each group then presented their pitch and idea for a prototype of the product.

Dushan Nikolvoski, the director of the Innovation Hub & clinical associate professor of entrepreneurship at Valparaiso University was one of the many speakers at this event. With over 35 years of experience of startup and business experience and over 30 years of teaching experience, he talked about learning from your failures. He also spoke about values and mindset in the field of entrepreneurship. 

New Venture Development is taught by Mrs. Kristina Fleming at Hanover Central High School. This is the second course in the Entrepreneurship career pathway, where they previously took Principles of Entrepreneurship. This class consists of 6 students since this is a newer pathway at the high school. Five out of the six students are juniors and will have the opportunity to complete the pathway with the final class, Small Business Operations, next year. 

The students felt that there were main takeaways from the Innovation Hub trip. The six gentlemen learned how to let go of ideas when they don’t work out, how to establish connections, think outside the box, and develop an understanding of the world of being an entrepreneur. Ty Dust expressed that he wants to open a business in the future that will fix the world’s problem of plastic waste. Ashton Verbish claimed that he wants to open a real estate business under his name, or just own a business in general with an LLC. Andrew Hinojosa wants to open a clothing/fashion business and is currently in the process of designing his first collection. 

The strive to take this career pathway class varied from student to student. Some of the students don’t plan on owning a business in the future, but they decided to try the class to learn how to think outside of high school and understand the groundwork of businesses. Those who want to open a business in the future found that this class would help them meet their goals and understand the world of entrepreneurship on a deeper level. Throughout the class, they have learned that business takes failure and learning from your mistakes to be successful. They have also learned that starting a business is not as difficult as people may think.

Dushan Nikolvoski was a favorite from a couple of students because he opened their eyes to how a five-year-old was more of a genius than an adult due to school systems. Donn Wettreick was a favorite as well because the students watched videos and listened to his podcast in class. They enjoyed the interactive activities and challenges that he gave them to do throughout his speech.  Cary Conrad was one student’s favorites because of his talk about the golden rule of finance and making the rules. This student wants to be a rule maker. Ashton Verbish said, “I think this trip may have been the most successful field trip that I have ever been on. I hope to go on many more trips like this one. If I can extend my business knowledge, then the sky is the limit for my invention.