Every year, Camp BizSmart, a camp that teaches entrepreneurial skills and attitude to students aged 11-15, holds a business plan competition for teams interested in featuring their own innovative product ideas. The winners of the 2011 contest were NeuroSky 5, six students who created a line of highly sophisticated sports gear called NeuroSport. Five of those students go to The Harker School, including team leader and CEO of NeuroSky Shannon Hong, grade 8. Annie Zhou, grade 8, Karen Tu, grade 8, Quentin Delepine, grade 7, and Joseph Krackeler, grade 7, rounded out the Harker students on the team.

As a result of their win, NeuroSky 5 was invited to present their winning solution at Keiretsu Forum’s sixth annual Angel Capital Expo in mid-November, where they had a chance to hear about up and coming ideas in various industries and visit with attendees. Randy Williams, the founder and CEO of Keiretsu Forum, and Sonja Markova, the managing director at Keiretsu Forum, introduced the Camp BizSmart group as the winning team, and presented them with their first place award. Following the presentation, the students were invited to lunch, and given a chance to share their idea with guests.

“The event went off beautifully and we were very proud of the Camp BizSmart grand finale team of students, many who are Harker students,” said Peggy Gibbs. “The students were recognized on stage by Williams and Markova for being named as the 1st place winner over 19 teams of students at our 3 locations.”