For the tenth consecutive year, the BYU-Hawaii Students in Free Enterprise(SIFE) team will compete in the organization's U.S. national competition — to be held in Dallas, Texas, from May 6-8 — following an impressive win in the regional March 23 meet on campus. Last year the BYU-Hawaii team placed in the top-40 nationally.
SIFE, a global nonprofit organization, challenges university teams such as the one at BYUH to develop community outreach projects in five areas: market economics, success skills, entrepreneurship, financial literacy and business ethics. The competitions judge the effectiveness of each team's programs in these areas.
Six of the 35 SIFE members at BYU-Hawaii presented their media-rich report entitled "Noble Men and Women for the World" to the regional panel of judges The presentation began and ended with reference to BYU-Hawaii founder President David O. McKay's familiar declaration that this school would produce "...men who cannot be bought or sold, men who will scorn to violate truth, genuine gold... You mark that word, and from this school, I'll tell you, will go men and women whose influence will be felt for good towards the establishment of peace internationally."
The presentation also included status reports on current projects, including:
- A joint BYU-Hawaii/Shenzhen Tourism College mentored learning initiative that conducted a high-level visitor satisfaction and marketing survey for the largest entertainment based company in China. The company valued the group's approximately 1,000-page analytic report at $5 million.
- Square foot gardening that has far-reaching implications internationally and has been adopted by the married students at BYU-Hawaii.
- Six Sigma Black Belt training, that resulted in follow-up customer satisfaction work with the BYU-Hawaii Seasider snack bar. "From our perspective they brought a different set of eyes and ears to our service," Director of Food Services David Keala was quoted. "They came back and helped us with our training. They came prepared and did a wonderful job." The "black belts" also worked with 18 other BYU-Hawaii units and four community businesses.
- Participation in the ninth annual entrepreneurship conference and business plan competition that involved 71 visiting entrepreneurs who conducted workshops, mentored students and acted as judges, as well as almost 600 attendees.
- A workshop on financial planning for retirement.
- Ongoing work on the Color the World coloring book program started in 1999 to help teach children about honesty and service.
"Additionally, we submitted the Chinese Mentored Learning Initiative in the AFLAC Market Economics individual topic category. For the AFLAC Market Economics competition, we were selected as a top-20 finalist from a Nationwide pool of SIFE teams that entered," reported BYUH SIFE member Nate Tilton.
Dr. William Neal, Assistant to the President of BYU-Hawaii and team advisor, added the group has already begun making preparations for Dallas. "I'm extremely proud of this group of students. They worked very hard to prepare the written report as well as write the script, prepare the visuals, and rehearse for the presentation. The regional competitions are always competitive; and they came together remarkably well, delegated assignments, and dedicated considerable time, often late nights, to represent BYU-Hawaii in an exceptional way," he said
"Once again, it was evident to me that SIFE is a vehicle to develop student leadership skills, where they plan, organize, and conduct service projects in the community throughout the year. The judges were highly complimentary of the quality of their projects and the presentation itself. It's a blessing for me as the advisor to work with such outstanding young adults."
(Photos by Mike Foley)
