KIMT News 3's Evan Berg learned about the businesses the teens would like to see in downtown Rochester and how the exercise taught them about the art of the pitch.
ROCHESTER, Minn.- Workforce Development Inc. held its 2024 Downtown Business Pitch Day for students at John Marshall High School on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at the Historic Chateau Theatre.
The event was part of the group's collaborative Equity in Built Environments program with the City of Rochester which seeks to get more women of color in construction and design industries.
According to Wafa Elkhalifa, a judge at the event and coordinator of equitable economic development for Destination Medical Center the event is a great way to get young and diverse voices interested in urban planning and business development.
"It's a great opportunity for them to become familiar with these different careers, usually you would only see schematic plans and these different drawings coming from an architect," Elkhalifa said.
Elkhalifa said students ideas were also instructive about what the next generation wants to see in the downtown area.
184 high school juniors participated in this years event, and their pitches included a lot of variety.
Students designed restaurants, daycares and entertainment services like escape rooms, karaoke and paintball arenas.
The event had two sessions for students to participate in, one in the morning and another in the afternoon.
The winning project for the morning session was Fantasy Fries, a proposed french fry culinary fusion restaurant designed by Justice Friedt, Agatha Olsen, Lydia Hak and Evey Robinson.
Olsen said she and her teammates learned a lot from the project about coming up with a business plan and finding a way to make it appeal to potential customers.
"Since all of us have different cultural backgrounds, it's really exciting how we were able to incorporate that into our project," Olsen said.
Elkhalifa says the event's judges and organizers hope students can take what they learned from the event into their future careers, so that maybe some of these plans can become a reality someday.