BUILD’s been busy over these past few weeks! After taking time off for Thanksgiving, E2 teams are back to the grind in order to stay on track for December’s selling events. The recent TEDxBeaconStreet event here in Boston was the perfect opportunity for some of our teams to venture out and gain some useful advice. TED is a nonprofit devoted to connecting professionals from the Technology, Entertainment, and Design worlds. This November, the conference found its way to Boston as TEDxBeaconStreet. The CEO of E2 team DePENdables was able to attend the event alongside two Elite team members. BUILD alumnus Herbert Castillo–now a sophomore at Babson–also attended the conference as a youth ambassador.

Students met TEDx speakers from around the country, including a Chief Marketing Executive from General Electric, Google programmers from California, and local Venture Capitalists. They were even able to check out a three-dimensional printer from Maker Bot, a product sponsored by GE. BUILD teams also sold their products and promoted youth entrepreneurship at the invitation of Tim Smith, one of the organizers of this inaugural event. Tim is the Senior Director of Program Innovation at Big Brothers Big Sisters. Both E2 teams had a successful selling day, DePENdables surpassing their financial break-even point by selling 18 units.

This week, E1 students have begun learning about start-up product and service development in class. They will continue to become familiarized with team-building, business roles and responsibilities, and start-up deliverables. Their classes are also heading out to MIT and Northeastern University to join IdeaStorm, where they will listen to guest speakers and work together to complete business challenges. Each team will bring an initial business idea from their in-class brainstorm, and will discuss improvements and other product ideas based off their initial thoughts. Teams will have a chance to share their best ideas to the larger group, which is the perfect opportunity for the students to begin practicing their newfound pitching skills on a real audience.