An Idea Is Just the Beginning at Roger Williams University’s Entrepreneurship Camp
High school students develop business ideas, learn from entrepreneurs, and put their skills to the test through a week of hands-on experiences at RWU.
BRISTOL, R.I. – A conversation about a January blizzard became a business idea for a group of high school students at Roger Williams University’s inaugural Entrepreneurship Camp.
The idea was Equipped, an equipment rental app aimed at helping new homeowners and families access expensive items they may only need a few times a year, such as a snowblower.
For Silvia Spaziano, a senior at Ponaganset High School from Foster, R.I., the idea came from a problem the group had seen firsthand.
“Some of us had neighbors who didn't have any equipment to deal with the snow,” Spaziano said. “After chatting about that, we realized that we could turn it into a business.”
Over the weeklong camp, students took ideas like Equipped from conversation to presentation while learning about venture building, financial literacy, marketing, product management, and strategic thinking. Through classroom instruction and hands-on activities, including a Shark Tankexercise, campers explored how entrepreneurs develop ideas, communicate their value, and pitch them to others.
That learning extended beyond campus. Students visited Social Enterprise Greenhouse in Providence, where they watched entrepreneurs pitch their startups in a competition. Spaziano said seeing those presentations helped the group rethink its own project.
“We were able to change and adapt how we were looking at our project because of what we saw,” Spaziano said.
Campers also visited Imagine Gift Emporium in Warren, where products from local artisans offered another look at how creativity can become entrepreneurial opportunity.
By Friday, students presented their own business pitches before family members, faculty, and administrators.
“This was a fully immersive, interactive experience backed up with classroom instruction from four professors,” said Herbert Radford, lecturer in management and enterprise area coordinator in RWU’s Mario J. Gabelli School of Business.
For Spaziano, who hopes to own a business one day, the week offered more than an introduction to entrepreneurship.
“I felt more capable in myself as a person as well as a business student,” Spaziano said. “This camp gave me a head start.”