Lodged in the entryway to Memorial City Malls’ Randall’s, a thick band of lemonade-stand-esque pop-ups catch the easy-minded weekend shopper’s eye. Eager teenagers flock towards passersby, hoping for the chance to spark enough interest in their minds, and bring another customer onboard to expand their vision.
In the midst of these youthful entrepreneurs, one group stands steadfast in its mission to enact change, driven by a motive outside of a mere desire for profit.
BrightSTEM, driven by CVHS’s very own Junior Achievement club, is a student-led company determined to eradicate underexposure to STEM careers for those who may see a future in the field. They look to inspire through experience, bring the magic of learning to children of all ages.
In a similar way, Junior Achievement seeks to take teenagers’ existing experiences and allow them the chance to be furthered, exposing students to their entrepreneurial potential. Students are granted firsthand experience of how a business functions, forming their own mini companies that parallel the real world.
Club President and Company CEO Olumide Adeyeri, along with Club and Company Secretary Annabelle Choi, used their own experiences to provide the backbone off of which the company was able to build their purpose.
“The inspiration came from the time Annabelle and I spent last summer at the Houston Health Museum, interning in the DeBakey Cell Lab,” Adeyeri said.
The lab is an interactive way for kids and teens to learn about lab technology through experiments such as DNA extraction, identifying mystery microbes and more – and for Choi and Adeyeri, they saw opportunity in the endeavor.
Olumide discusses how they encountered various experts from the UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences during the internship, in which attendance of weekly “Saturday Sessions” was mandated.
“Every Saturday we learned about a new career in STEM, whether data analytics or biomedical research … I felt like kids everywhere – and especially kids younger than us who still have room and time to change their path – deserved eye-opening content and opportunities to learn about more niche STEM careers than your typical astronaut or general doctor,” she said.
The development for BrightSTEM has been in the works since early October.
“We initially had various ideas including a carpool app to relieve the problem of bus transportation in HISD but after talking to our Junior Achievement advisor, Tania Daniel, we decided there were too many security risks,” Adeyeri elaborates.
From that feedback, the decision rose to reject their primary concept in favor of a new idea entirely. The very day their original idea had been shut down for good, BrightSTEM was born.
Their project finds its basis in fact, not just experience – stating how, while 79% of Gen Z is interested in a career in STEM, only 25% will go on to pursue it as their first choice. Despite this, 63% of parents would discourage their child from pursuing a STEM career they are passionate about. BrightSTEM seeks to deter the hesitation towards approaching the field by “making STEM fun and appealing through the sale of [their] Bright Boxes while also addressing the deeper issue of career education and preparation with [their] Bright Futures Video Hub, where [they] showcase the jobs and lives of full-time STEM professionals.”
From these positive experiences with the STEM field and all the possibilities it has to offer, students of all ages may be inspired the way Adeyeri and Choi were to pursue their interests further. They may find a future in a subject they had never considered prior to that moment or be confronted with skills they were unaware they possessed, due to the intimidating nature of the unknown and their underexposure to the concepts themselves.
“We chose to debut our company with the Slime Making Kit, DNA Extraction Kit, and Volcano Kit because we felt these would be the best experiments to make a lot of with our starting capital- $750 won from our Phillips66 EnTEENpreneur Conference,” Adeyeri added.
After conducting a market survey of the Greater Houston area, their team concluded that both products would be profitable choices- and this decision has been repeatedly reaffirmed through heavy positive feedback throughout the Trade Fair.
“One Trade Fair judge even said the volcano kit resonated with her childhood love of science,” remarked Adeyeri.
And as it was merely the launch day of BrightSTEM, to their team, the Trade Fair was just the start of the company’s journey.
“Throughout the months of March and April, BrightSTEM plans to maintain weekly or bi-weekly presences at the Rice Village Farmers Market and Montrose Market. Memorial Mall, who hosted the Trade Fair, has also invited us back to the mall on March 29th for a non-competitive popup alongside two other teams,” says Olumide.
They are additionally in the process of setting up their online sales channel within the next few weeks to make sure the company’s Bright Boxes and Bright Futures are accessible no matter the customer’s circumstances.
As the end of this school year nears however, the team is ultimately gunning to travel to Atlanta State University to participate in this year’s Future Bound Company of the Year competition and compete at the national scale.
