By David F. Rooney
Community Futures Development Corporation is taking a major step forward when it comes to encouraging entrepreneurial thinking among Revelstoke students by joining the Junior Dragons Den program.
Junior Dragons is based on the popular Dragons’ Den series on CBC TV. It encourages young people to come up with business ideas that can actually be realized. It offers $9,000 in prizes for the best business ideas created by students. The program is running in Trail, Castlegar, Grand Forks and Nelson. Revelstoke is the first community outside the Boundary and East and West Kootenay regions to join the program.
Revelstoke CFDC bard members voted during their May meeting to join the program. (Please click here to visit the Junior Dragons’ website.)
Our community’s participation in this program is not cheap. There is a one-time-only franchise fee of $12,500 followed by annual fees of somerwhre between $3,000 and $5,000.
“So, essentially we’ll plant the seed with our own Junior Dragons and see what comes of it,” said board director Jim Maitre.
Earlier this year Revelstoke CFDC initiated a Junior Achievement program at SD 19 schools. Intended to inject renewed emphasis on numeracy as well as a good dose of entrepreneurial spirit into Revelstoke’s young people, CFDC Manager Kevin Dorrius thinks students who have taken the Junior Achievement program will be natural Junior Dragons’ Den prospects.
And some amazing things can come of this program, Dorrius told the board.
Besides sponsoring Junior Achievement and encouraging business thinking, CFDC will advise Revelstoke’s Junior Dragons on what they to do to win.
“Basically, Junior Dragons’ Den is going Basin-wide,” he said, adding that Revelstoke could host one of these in-public Junior Dragons’ Den competitions within a couple of years.
This past year’s show had seven judges coming from the news media, the financial services sector, municipal government, private business and a former Junior Dragons’ Den winner. They are not only ones whose vote count when it comes to determining the show’s winners. A new electronic voting system enables everyone in the audience to vote and their votes count for 20% of the overall mark each Junior Dragon receives on their quest to the winners circle.
There were eight winners in three divisions during this year’s competition, held May 1 at the Charles Bailey Theatre in Trail:
| Junior Division | Senior Division | College/University Division |
| SparrX- Mike Ganzert, J.L. Crowe SecondaryA small kit of electrical sensors which you wear underneath protective sparring gear, that automatically records and measures how many points are taken in a sparring match. | Use It or Lose It – Hannah Bauman, Rebekah Liszt, Stanley Humphries SecondaryA digital fridge app which catalogues the contents of your fridge, expiration dates of food items and tells you when your food is about to expire. | Ideas Cafe, Maxwell Nicholson from Grand Forks, BC attending the University of VictoriaA dine in cafe which encourages social interaction, where staff seat customers together that have similar interests, to share business ideas over lunch and coffee (linked in meets Starbucks). |
| Power Studs- Darrin McBee, Keegan Christiansen, Stanley Humphries SecondarySpecially designed and permanently mounted tire studs for Dirt bikes and ATV’s. | BCS Firewood Services – Sebastian Sullivan, Brandon Drexler, Grandforks SecondaryFirewood delivery service. | |
| 3 Little Pigs Livestock Care- Talia Westergreen, Nathaniel Laybourne, Wildflower Middle School, NelsonA live stock and gardening service for vacationing farmers | Soothing Sounds – Austin Forry, Anthony Wilson, J.L. Crowe SecondaryA special designed sleep pillow with speakers and a white noise and music feed | |
| Positive Hoop Life- Rachel Danczek, J.L. CroweHula Hoop workshops for health and fitness |
