After watching the phenomenal Ted Talk by Scott McLeod titled Extracurricular Empowerment (Extracurricular empowerment: Scott McLeod at TEDxDesMoines ) I was really grooving on his message of building robust and meaningful technological tasks and problems in to our school curriculum. Mr. MeLeod emphasized our dire need to give students meaningful tasks, give them the technology and access the need, get out the way while still supporting and guiding them, and let them be amazing. Mr. McLeod spoke about many different students who made and did great and inspiring things with technology in extracurricular settings. He got me wondering what other empowering and entrepreneurial activities students are doing.
Fox News shared piece online in May 2016, written by Kim Lachance Shandrow, titled 10 Successful Kid Entrepreneurs Keeping Their Eyes on the Prize (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/02/10-successful-kid-entrepreneurs-keeping-their-eyes-on-prize.html) that interviewed 10 teen and tween age entrepreneurs about their businesses, motivations, starts, and advice they have for other kidprenuers. One of my favorites is the interview with Mikaila Ulmer who started her business Me and the Bees Lemonade at age 11. She is the Queen Bee aka CEO of her own lemonade business that is delicious and bee friendly. She appeared on the TV show Shark Tank and is now selling her products through Whole Foods in select regions of the US. What inspires me the most is that Queen Bee Milaila donates a percentage of her profits to charities, preservation organizations, and bee keepers associations. So much more can be found at her website http://meandthebees.com/pages/giving-back and Twitter @MikailasBees. Her site has a find our product section that is super cool! Unfortunately the nearest place to my Arlington Virginia home that sells her product is in Florida but I have faith that her lemonade drinks will make their way up to me eventually. Queen Bee Mikailia even takes her presentation and entrepreneurial self on the road! Please look up her site and follow her on Twitter so we can all be awestruck by and proud of this hard working, creative, and generous kidprenuer together.
P.S. – WOW! After looking at her Twitter I just found out that she was at this year’s, 2016 White House United State of Women Summit! I am so excited for Mikailia and that she was invited to participate in such a powerful and meaningful summit right by where I live. Yay!
minteateaching 