Drury SIFE team takes entrepreneurship award

The team was runner-up to Roberts Wesleyan College of Rochester, N.Y., at the SIFE USA National Exposition May 22–23 in Kansas City.

But the Drury team found a silver lining at last night’s award ceremony, where they were named best in entrepreneurship.

Individual topic awards were given in four other areas: market economics, success skills, financial literacy and business ethics and sustainability.

The entrepreneurship award is given to the team that has created the most economic opportunity by helping others succeed as entrepreneurs and improve existing businesses.

Drury students gave a 25-minute presentation that detailed a year of work on projects, including B3, a system of using plush toy animals to carry classroom lessons on business principles; microloan programs in Nicaragua; operation of the Avenue 33 consignment store in Springfield; helping a group of women shoemakers in China to increase sales and reach new markets; and DSIFE, a small-business incubator in Springfield that provides office space, equipment and support for startup companies.

In the last year, the DSIFE incubator program has expanded to include partnerships with nonprofit agencies such as Community Foundation of the Ozarks and an international franchising branch of DSIFE.

Team members put in an estimated 10,000 hours of work in the last year and at the competition.

Other local SIFE teams – Missouri State University, Ozarks Technical Community College, and College of the Ozarks – did not advance from the opening round of the competition, according to Michelle West, director of public relations at the SIFE World Headquarters in Springfield. Evangel University did not advance from regionals to the national competition.