Section outline

  • Collapse Expand

    General

    Collapse all Expand all

    • Pitch your Vision banner

    • Students must
      Mark as done

      Pitch your Vision

      JA Canada provides hands-on experiential learning in the classroom and through extra-curricular activities. Programs focus on three educational pillars: financial health, work readiness, and entrepreneurship. JA recruits volunteers from the business community to collaborate on the delivery of programs, which exposes students to real world business perspectives and ideas. 

      Welcome to Pitch your Vision

      About Pitch your Vision

      Pitch your Vision is a 6-week learning experience that provides students in Grades 9-12 with the opportunity to explore generating, developing and evaluating ideas for launching a new entrepreneurial venture. This learning experience allows students to develop and test new ideas in an environment that encourages and celebrates creativity and innovation. Students will develop and test ideas through market research and prototyping, set goals, develop a business plan, and learn how to pitch their product/ service. 

      At the end of the program, students will enter their business idea into a pitch competition. Judges will evaluate all pitch decks for evaluation and the top teams will be invited to pitch live at a virtual event. 

      Upon completing the program students should be able to understand the significance of entrepreneurship and innovation in today’s society and economy, generate, develop and pitch an innovative idea, and evaluate the feasibility and competitiveness of a new venture.

      Pitch your Vision does not include the opportunity for students to actually launch and run their small business as part of the program. This opportunity is included in the JA Company Program, which can be run as an after-school experience 18 weeks. If you are interested in having your students participate in this longer, more intensive experience contact your local JA contact and ask them about JA Company Program.

      Curriculum Correlations

      Find an overview of curriculum correlations here.

      Program Delivery Format

      The outline for the program was developed as an in-person experience but can be modified to accommodate virtual learning. There are many platforms and tools such as slack, teams, google meet, zoom and others that can be used to facilitate the instructional elements and allow for collaboration amongst students as required.  Please contact your JA contact if you are looking for recommendations.

      Teacher Role

      The teacher will act as a business advisor, and supervisor to their students, helping them develop and test ideas while developing an understanding of business and entrepreneurship through this ‘hands-on’ program.

      The responsibility of the teacher is to help the students organize and assemble information so that they can make sound business decisions, without making those decisions for them. This is accomplished by understanding the program, highlighting important factors and asking questions which will stimulate the students throughout the process.

      • Work closely with the students, and communicate with your JA Program Manager to ensure the success of the program 
      • Commit to the agreed program delivery timeframe
      • Lead students through the program as outlined below
      • Supervise the students and ensure they are following all guidelines
      • Review each lesson/activity and to prepare for your meetings
      • Be comfortable and willing to share own professional experience/knowledge
      • Ensure the students are meeting all outcomes of the program in a timely manner

      Time Commitment 

      • Preparation time will vary – on average 15-20 minutes before each meeting
      • Approximately 2 hours, once a week
      • Respond to student correspondence as necessary
      • Program duration is 6 weeks, plus a virtual pitch event for the top teams
      Not available unless: Your Charter is JA Central Ontario
    • JA Company Program Welcome video File
      Hidden from students
  • Collapse Expand

    Week 1 - Inspire

    Participants learn that Pitch your Vision is an exciting hands-on experience that aims to inspires them to create an exciting entrepreneurial venture through collaboration.

    Objectives

        • Establish expectations and excite students about the program learning opportunity
        • Consider a variety of possible products, services, and business models

  • Collapse Expand

    Week 2 - Inspire

    Participants continue examining the attributes of a good product or service and continue brainstorming and exploring ideas. Groups will build their team norms, practice pitching, and learn about prototyping. 

    Objectives: 

    • Get to know team members, including strengths and motivations. 
    • Collaboratively develop group working norms.
    • Consider a variety of possible products, services, and business models. 

    Activities that can be used for assessment: 

        • Product and Service Research Worksheet

  • Collapse Expand

    Week 3 - Unite

    Participants pitch their ideas and determine a product/service to continue developing. 

    Objectives 

        • Understand the criteria for selecting the nature of the business venture
        • Introduction to the SMART goal setting model. 
        • Understand potential mechanisms for funding business ventures. 

    Activities that can be used for assessment: 

    Product/Service Research Worksheet - Mandatory for all teams to submit to JA
    Once each team has determined their final product/service idea, they should submit a completed product/service research worksheet document to JA by uploading to Dropbox here - 

    https://www.dropbox.com/request/muk64EQKv1qXcZSnVr5I. Please include the teacher and business name when naming the document for submission. Please submit all worksheets together for your group if possible.  Product/Service Research Worksheets are due by Monday October 26. Note that there is flexibility with this deadline if approved through your JA contact.  

  • Collapse Expand

    Week 4 - Build

    Participants work on further developing their product/ service idea through prototyping and market research. The teams also start to work on their lean business plan. 

    Objectives: 

        • Develop a prototype and a market research strategy to fine tune the idea. 
        • Establish the details of the potential student company using the business model canvas and lean business plan.

    Activities that can be used for assessment: 


  • Collapse Expand

    Week 5 - Build

    Participants continue developing and refining their idea by reviewing their market research and adapting their prototype. The team(s) will begin developing and rehearsing their final pitch.

    Objectives: 

        • Review and reflect on research conducted. 
        • Make changes to the prototype and Lean Business Plan as necessary.


    NOTE: you may wish to give more time for students to work on their Lean Business Plans in class as this is due to JA at the end of the program for preliminary judging. If you choose to do this, part of weeks 5 & 6 can be used for the lean business plan completion. Then, plan to have student pitches in the following weeks after submissions of the Lean Business Plan are complete. 

    Only the Lean business plans need to be submitted to JA at the end of week 6, not the PPT pitch decks. 

  • Collapse Expand

    Week 6 - Achieve

    Participants will conclude their experience by fine-tuning and presenting a final pitch to the class. Students will be showcasing the steps of their process and evolution of their product/ service ideas. 

    Objectives: 

        • Finalize and fine-tune final pitch.
        • Present evolution of the product/ service. 
        • Present a final pitch summarizing the business idea and process. 
        • Complete JA student survey & teacher survey to provide feedback on the program (emailed to you by your JA Contact).

    Activities that can be used for assessment: 

    Final Lean Business Plan - Mandatory 

    Each team should submit their final lean business plan for review by the preliminary judges by Monday November 23.  Teams submit their business plans here - https://www.dropbox.com/request/566I5Pecz8pw9KGzKFhw. Please include the teacher name and company name when naming the document for submission. If possible, please submit all submissions for your group together.

    NOTE: the final in-class pitch presentations can be pushed back a week or two for students to work on their lean business plan submissions if preferred. Only the Lean business plans need to be submitted to JA at the end of week 6, not the PPT pitch presentations.

    Program Survey

    Please ask students to complete the program survey (emailed to you by your JA Contact). This is important for our partners and to improve the experience for future participants.

  • Collapse Expand

    Optional Activities