Carbondale Technology Transfer Center’s 9th Annual Entrepreneurship Academy

The Carbondale Technology Transfer Center (CTTC) held it’s 9th Annual Entrepreneurship Academy with students from Carbondale Area Jr/Sr High School, Forest City Regional High School, and Western Wayne High School. The CTTC’s Entrepreneurship Academy seeks to expose high school students (primarily sophomores and juniors) to the concept of entrepreneurship and its supporting characteristics. These business skills include leadership, marketing, effective business practices, and a spirit of independent thinking.  Students participating in the program are educated through classroom instruction along with hands-on learning through the completion of a project in conjunction with a local business.  This year, students worked with local businesses on project selected by the business owners.

Carbondale Area students worked with Burning Bush Café to develop a marketing plan and pieces for one of their products. Cliff Krajkovich, owner of Burning Bush Cafe, tasked the students with developing different ways to market and promote his business, including their partnership with the Monastery. The students offered a variety of ways to highlight the business, including through social media. The winning team of students suggested creating “behind the scenes” videos that are popular on TikTok, which show how different menu items are made.

Forest City Regional students worked with Birtchtown Weddings and Events to come up with some creative ways to market the venue for events other than weddings. Jessica Polednak, owner of Birchtown Weddings and Events, challenged the students with coming up with different ideas on how to utilize and market the property for events outside of wedding season. The class offered a variety of different ideas, ranging from indoor cornhole tournaments, to Santa’s Christmas Wonderland in December, to even a mechanical bull.

Western Wayne students worked with Adams Cable to develop a marketing plan and pieces for their new product, Echoe Stream.  Stephanie Kemmerer, Director of Marketing at Adams Cable, had the student teams develop a marketing plan for Echoe Stream and a target demographic of their market. They incorporated both on-air and print promotions to showcase the product and its advantages.

Congratulations to all of this year’s Entrepreneurship Academy students on a very successful year and thank you to Cliff of Burning Bush Café, Stephanie, Claire, and Wendy of Adams Cable, and Jessica of Birchtown Weddings and Events, for your participation in this year’s Entrepreneurship Academy!