Students in Free Enterprise

Last week a team of students from SDSU competed in the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) U.S. National Competition in Dallas, Texas.  SIFE establishes student teams on university campuses with the goal of creating economic opportunity for other people. 

From my first SIFE experiences, I quickly learned that SIFE is not just another organization on campus.  SIFE is a global non-profit organization with millions of participants that is funded by Fortune 500 companies and partners businesses with universities to create REAL economic opportunity for other people. 

The SDSU SIFE team traveled to Dallas after winning the regional competition in Seattle, Washington.  By the end of their travels, the team brought home 4 trophies, $4500, and experiences to last a lifetime.

 

The group of 8 students presented their outreach program for this year, which included 19 small business consulting projects in National City and the mentorship of San Diego High School.  The team's efforts returned very tangible results. 

National City was able to increase jobs, increase tax revenues, and empower their once struggling business community.  The results were so impressive that National City has signed a 3-year, $75,000 contract with SDSU to continue the consulting projects.

San Diego High School was on the brink of being shut down by the federal government for not meeting performance requirements.  With the help of the SDSU SIFE team hundreds of students have been mentored and the schools processes have been refined. The SD High Principal noted that "the SDSU SIFE team has created a college growing culture"- something truly amazing considering that 75% of the students live at or below the poverty line and don't even have the basic needs to even think about college.

Throughout the competition the team was judged based upon the 5 SIFE educational topics: market economics, success skills, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and business ethics.  I'm confident our efforts more than satisfied the criteria, but I feel that is not what we based our success on. 

When you have a city of crime (>2x the national violent crime rate) and a high school full of gangs and poverty (75% below the poverty line) your success will be relative.  The simple act of helping had an impact on these people and I saw it first hand.  When you can take a struggling business owner and not only give her strategic direction, but also the resources to empower herself as an entrepreneur, or you take a San Diego high school student  and take them out of the negative environment they're in every day (and they are) and bring them on campus, let them visualize success, let them visualize going to college (something that has never even crossed their mind) you do something more than create a connection with someone. 

You create a domino effect.

In a book called Creative Experience, a social advocate, Mary Parker Folett, wrote, "The job of a leader is to create more leaders."  (Source: Johnny Chan) That is what the SDSU SIFE team did.  That's why we were successful.  And thats why we'll never forget this experience.

-nick

Comments

[Johnny Chan]

Awesomeness! What an experience - we're so incredibly blown away by your team's performance. Can't say we're surprising that your team won your region though. Par for course for "The Rainmaker".

We're proud of you Nick. You continue to make an imprint in San Diego on multiple levels.

Johnny

[Jen Hibbits]

Awesome, Nick. Way to go. And thanks for writing this up. It's good to learn more about your project. You never cease to amaze me!