Rob Lewis beamed with happiness to discuss Ball High’s first ever Hackathon, a competition where eighteen Ball High students were presented with 10 real world problems and the students formed teams to build a business idea to create a solution for their problem.
“Ball High’s Tor Store partnered with Vision Galveston, Candy Hattingh, Director of Programs and Operations, and Christine Bryant, Chief Executive Officer, to put together and host the event at MarMo Plaza, a business incubator space,” Lewis said.
Lewis and Joseph Swallows, another fellow entrepreneurship teacher at Ball High, departed the school at 8:45 each day, with a group of 30 total students. The grades ranged from sophomores to seniors, and they arrived at the Marmo Plaza to meet with a variety of business owners and advisors to strategize before splitting up into groups and creating their business. On the last day they had a four-minute presentation, where they pitched their solution and business to be graded and judged to determine the best idea and solution.
Since only Ball High participated, everyone who competed walked away with a little bit of prize money. The participating companies donated six thousand dollars to distribute as prizes between the teams. The first-place team, Vibrant Vision Studios, won $400 per person, then $300 per person for the second-place team, Americans Finest Jobs, and everyone student in the end was rewarded for their hard dedicated work.
The competition show cased kids who are interested in business. The experience also provided a great way to let the students’ network and rely on themselves rather than a teacher. Even if they didn’t place first or second, the students learned how they could grow and learn from their mistakes, and as Lewis said in our interview, “Failure is the great teacher.”
“Overall, it was an incredible first year!” Lewis exclaimed. “And everyone involved was so thankful to be there. Huge congratulations to Aiden Mize, Joanandres Santos, Veruschka Newton, Kendall Mathews, and Dior Decker for placing first place and Memphis Boedicker, Dylan Rowe, Hector Zuniga, and Diego Torres for placing second place.”
