FBLA TBL February 2023 - 10

FBLA PROGRAMS
STUDENT CHALLENGES
Intuit's Social Innovation Challenge
Winners Aim to Help Businesses Blast Off
Shaomin Kee knew something
was up when she saw a flood of
messages in the group chat.
" I was competing during the time
it was being announced, " said Kee,
a junior at Lambert High School in
Suwanee, Georgia. " We all have a
collective group chat, and I suddenly
saw 15 different messages from my
team members going, 'Oh my god,
we won!' "
That's how Kee learned her team
took first place in Intuit's Social
Innovation Challenge last fall. The
challenge was designed by Intuit,
Inc. - the brains behind such popular
financial software as TurboTax,
Credit Karma, and QuickBooks. The
Intuit Social Innovation Challenge winners Adithya Ravichandran, Neal Karani,
Shaomin Kee, and Vineeth Sendilraj of Lambert High School in Suwanee, Georgia.
challenge is open to all FBLA High School members
across the United States and Canada, and encourages
participants to think creatively and critically about how
they can use technology to solve important problems
in their communities. The competition is designed to
inspire and support the next generation of leaders and
entrepreneurs who are committed to making a positive
impact in the world. Winning first place meant each team
member received an educational scholarship of $5,000.
Besides Kee, the winning team included juniors
Adithya Ravichandran and Vineeth Sendilraj, and
sophomore Neal Karani. Their project, " BLSTOFF, " was
born from the need to provide underrepresented small
business owners with the knowledge to access existing
funding and marketing resources online. They chose
their name to convey the rapid upward trajectory for
small business success.
When the team was reviewing the entrepreneur
interviews provided for the challenge by Intuit, they
saw a common theme to anchor their project. " We
found that a lot of [the entrepreneurs], while they
could do what they wanted to do, they just didn't have
the awareness to find the resources to get there, "
Ravichandran said. For this reason, Team BLSTOFF
saw a clear need to provide resources such as resumé
search tools and software to visualize business trends.
| 10 | TOMORROW'S BUSINESS LEADER
Sendilraj credited Intuit's design thinking method with
helping to shape their message. This set of real-world skills
instructs business plan designers to have deep empathy for the
customer, think creatively and boldly, and constantly experiment
with the plan so it works best in real-world situations.
The project taught Karani and his classmates the
importance of teamwork. " Our team dynamic really, really
mattered, " he noted. " We worked really well together, we
were all hardworking, and we are all so specialized in different
things, so we managed to make the most out of our time. "
Lambert High wasn't the only FBLA chapter to take a
top slot in the competition. The third-place winners were
Shriya Patel, Jai Desai, Riva Babaria, and Kristy Garcia
from Sayreville War Memorial High School in Parlin, New
Jersey. Their project, " Minority Mixers, " sought to create an
internship program that invites students of all backgrounds
to learn about starting a business. These students each won a
$2,000 educational scholarship.
More than 300 high schools participated in the fall Social
Innovation Challenge; Intuit hopes even more schools will sign
up for the spring competition. Students will answer the following
question: How might we help your school be more sustainable?
Registration opened January 16 and closes March 6.
To register for the competition, visit
https://bit.ly/FBLAIntuitSIC.
https://bit.ly/FBLAIntuitSIC
FBLA TBL February 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of FBLA TBL February 2023
