CEL 10th Anniversary at SCH Academy

CEL turns 10!

Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) celebrated its 10th anniversary at SCH Academy on May 12, 2022. Leading up to this celebration we have been featuring current venture accelerator students, alumni of the program, and thought leaders who have had a hand at shaping the space into what it is today.

Over the past 10 years, the Sands Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) has become a cornerstone of the SCH educational experience. It is a program as substantial in its educational content as in its inspirational impact. In celebration of the CEL's 10th anniversary coming this May, we are publishing a commemorative booklet with the voices of those thought leaders who have had a role in shaping the CEL since its inception. We look forward to sharing these articles leading up to CEL’s milestone event as it continues to provide opportunity, devise creative solutions, effect positive change, and more for the future of education at SCH Academy.

Watch How the magic happenS in CEL

Watch this video produced by alumni Stephen Skeel '13 (7 Wonders Cinema) in fall 2021.

cel 10th anniversary:
demo Day

Demo Day | May 12

We invited everyone (from alumni to faculty to students) to hear about the amazing projects that our venture accelerator students have been working tirelessly on for over a year. From nonprofit organizations to products to mobile apps, our students (see below!) pitched their ventures to a panel of CEL alum and entrepreneurial audience.

Watch Live

High School Student Entrepreneur Business Education

cel 10th anniversary Keynote:
Scott galloway

celebrating 10 years

We invited everyone to join us on May 12, 2022 for Scott Galloway's virtual keynote address to the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership in honor of its 10th-Anniversary. Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business and a serial entrepreneur. In 2012, he was named one of the world's best business professors by Poets & Quants. He has founded 9 companies, including Section4, Prophet, and more. His Prof G and Pivot podcasts, No Mercy / No Malice blog, and Prof G YouTube channel reach millions of viewers and listeners. In 2020, Adweek named Pivot the "Business Podcast of the Year."

Keynote

Hear from our Student Entrepreneurs

Yang

Yang talks about how his venture got off the ground with the mentorship and learning in CEL | Yushu Reborn has raised $80,000 to help students in the Yushu region of Tibet (as of 2022).

Follow him: @Yushu.reborn

Haotian Yang '22
Yushu Reborn

Yang founded a nonprofit organization called Yushu Reborn, in his CEL Capstone class, to support Yushu earthquake victims. Partnering with a boarding school in the Yushu region that houses, clothes, feeds, and nurtures over 200 children, Yang was moved by the school’s positivity, warmth, and supportive care staff provides. Part of the school’s mission is to train its students for medical school and become doctors in Tibetan medicine, a profession that is very much needed in the region.

Even before the earthquake, the region only had a very limited number of schools, which were completely demolished in the earthquake. I have been fortunate in my life to have access to family support, a world-class education, and I want to ensure that these children have the same sorts of opportunities that I have had.

Alexa

Over 1,000 backpacks donated since January 2022 | Over $30,000 in donations and in-kind product donations | First Place, Global Youth Entrepreneurship Competition | Senate Accommodation.

Follow her: @HELPINGtheHomelessBackpacks

H.E.L.P.I.N.G. Website

Alexa Rhodes '22
H.E.L.P.I.N.G Homeless Backpacks

Alexa decided she wanted to create a nonprofit organization. Saddened by the number of homeless people living on the streets in major cities (192,875 in the U.S. and over 150 million worldwide), she knew her focus would be on this group of the population. And, with this in mind, she launched H.E.L.P.I.N.G. The Homeless Backpacks. Each of the words in H.E.L.P.I.N.G. have important messages to Alexa: Healing, Empowering, Loving, Providing, Influencing, Nourishing, and Giving. Read about Alexa's appearance on Fox 29 TV.

It's really important to CEL that you're developing who you are as a person and I've definitely been able to say that the program has done that for me.

Jack

Jack explains how CEL has improved his business skills without the burden of letter grades. It's a pass/fail class and it's up to the student to put the effort in.

Follow him: @thestudentconnect

Student Connect Website

Jack Gaghan '23
Student Connect

The concept for Student Connect and the initial pass at the project earned the team first place in the CEL Virtual Capstone Showcase in Jack's sophomore year. During his junior year, it has continued to take shape under the leadership provided by the Venture Accelerator. Read more about Jack and Brady's project here.

As we build out the business model we’ve conducted extensive research, interviewed eight experts in the field, thoroughly analyzed six competitors, designed a logo, built a website, created an Instagram account, and held a peer tutoring trial.

Delaney

Delaney explains what the CEL program meant to her and how she's grown because of it.

Follow her: @Epi.Phones

Delaney Brody '22
EpiPhone

Delaney has conceived, developed, and produced EpiPhones. An insulated silicone case that attaches to the back of a cell phone to house an epinephrine device, Brody’s EpiPhone provides, “peace of mind wherever you go.”

It took too long to print and the material needed to be more flexible in order to hold the epinephrine pen case. We are producing black and lavender versions for the first batch.

Chuck

Chuck talks about the supportive nature of the CEL program, from his faculty mentors to his fellow venture accelerator students.

Follow him: @Taco.Bout.It.Game

Shop Taco 'Bout It

Chuck Norton '22
Taco 'Bout It

Taco 'Bout It is a mental health card game that encourages players to discuss sensitive subjects, break down tensions between parents and kids, and enable sometimes difficult conversations—all within the context of a clever and family-friendly game in which players build out a taco! Read more about Chuck's experience here.

You can create any project you want. Your CEL teachers are there to support you, all of your classmates are there to help you whenever you need, and it's a great opportunity for you to get introduced into a more professional world at a younger age. It'll help you out as you enter your collegiate and professional career.

Meena

Sonas to America started before Meena with Alysa Akins (class of 2020) and has been passed down from entrepreneur to entrepreneur in the CEL, growing and changing with the students involved year over year.

Sonas to America website | @sonastoamerica

Meena Padhye '22
Sonas to America

Sonas' purpose is to develop intentional communities that are consciously designed through locally owned participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability (economic, social, cultural and ecology) to regenerate social and natural environments. Learn more about the Sonas journey, here and here.

We work with a weaving village in Cambodia [Sonas] consisting of 15 hard-working women who hand weave our products, such as scarves, blankets, face masks, and more out of ingredients that they grow themselves.

Stories from the leaders

In honor of this celebration, we are publishing a commemorative booklet with the voices of those thought leaders who have had a role in shaping the CEL since its inception. We look forward to sharing these articles leading up to CEL’s milestone event as it continues to provide opportunity, devise creative solutions, effect positive change, and more for the future of education at SCH Academy.

Read full booklet

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CEL 10th Anniversary at SCH Academy