Two Naperville North High School juniors have created a pitch-perfect idea. Aarav Khullar and Allen Xu formed BizBuzz, a free summer camp focused on fostering youth entrepreneurship in Naperville.
What is BizBuzz?
“So throughout the summer, we’re hosting free entrepreneurship camps for students in third to ninth grade to help them find their passion for entrepreneurship and learn new things while developing creativity, problem-solving skills, and just about anything in between,” said Allen Xu, co-founder of BizBuzz.
The two created BizBuzz during one of their late-night phone calls in April. They decided to start a nonprofit organization to help young community members not only develop business skills but also start a business of their own.
To do that, they recruited a team of 20 instructors to help facilitate the program, which averaged about 70 students per camp session.
Six-week summer camp
The six-week camp kicked off on June 12 with students meeting with the BizBuzz team once a week at the 95th Street Library and Nichols Library to learn about three important business topics.
“The first being entrepreneurship, which is idea generation and idea validation. The next one is marketing, which we teach them about branding, commercials, and different advertisement channels. The last one is finance, where we teach them about business and personal finance as well,” said Aarav Khullar, co-founder of BizBuzz.
Camp sessions included lessons from the BizBuzz team, engaging activities and games, guest speakers like Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli, and business applications, where students took what they learned and applied it to their business concept.
Students compete in the BizBuzz Fish Tank competition
The camp culminated in the two-day BizBuzz Fish Tank event on July 24 and 25, where the students had five minutes to present their business ideas to guest judges.
On day one, 50 teams consisting of over 100 students presented to a high school judge panel for the preliminary round. 12 of those teams advanced to the second day, where they presented to a panel made up of Naperville business owners and leaders.
All 12 teams took home an award for making it to the final round, and the top five were given sponsorship funding for their businesses. The inaugural BizBuzz Fish Tank winner was Garrett Hauk, for his alternative dog treat business, Garrett’s Gourmet Dog Treats.
“One of my dogs, her name is Ruby, tends to be overweight, and it’s because before we rescued her, she would eat lots of treats. So that kind of led me to my innovation. I’m just hoping to expand on that in the future,” said Hauk.
More than just a business program
While only some took home a prize, Khullar and Xu hope that all students take home the lessons, experiences, and friendships from the BizBuzz program.
“We really want them to not only apply entrepreneurship in different areas of life but take the fun that they created from the camp and the memories that will last a lifetime,” said Xu.
Both said they plan to bring BizBuzz back to the community next year.
“We definitely want to say that we have big plans for the future. We’re going back to making sure every student, not only in Naperville but in the Chicagoland area, has everything they need to succeed in entrepreneurship and business,” said Khullar.
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