Ridgeview High School has made history. Virtual Enterprise is sending two teams for the second year to New York. After countless hours of hard work, long nights, and practices, both of Ridgeview’s teams “Youforia” and “The Eco Depot” have made it to the state competition and are now ranked in the top 42 teams in the Western United States.

There are two teams that are a part of the Virtual Enterprise class and one of them is the “Youforia” group. CEO of “Youforia”, Gracie Diaz explains that she first heard about Virtual Enterprise after being presented in one of her classes and actually got the chance to join the team last year to the state show. She explains that, “seeing them in the audience is what inspired me to want to join the class.” 

Diaz expresses that being ranked in the top 42 teams in the Western United States is, “Exciting and definitely not surprising because we have put in a lot of work and we deserve to be here.” Their concept this year is a “Mindfulness Meditation Business” that deals with surrounding the increase and levels of anxiety, depression, and antisocial behaviors in teens and young adults. They plan to bring awareness to the idea of many kids, 30-80% struggle with anxiety and depression. Diaz hopes to bring the idea of meditation to “Help teens and come up with solutions or outlets for anxiety and depression.”

Diaz explains that with this concept, “There were a lot of people who were skeptical about the concept for this year but the statistics backed it up and we saw a lot of opportunity for this business so, we decided to take a leap of faith and do it.”

Diaz also explains that this year was much different than last year because of the new added pressure. She explains that, “Last year’s team was one of the first to rank so high in the competition, that this year there is a lot of pressure from other schools because we are seen as a competitor now.”

Diaz describes competing at the Western Regional business plan competition as, “scary because it was my first time actually competing and it was difficult but there were no questions asked the second time around so that was a great feeling and I feel extremely supported by my team and I’m proud of them.” As far as business plans, Diaz believes that, “Everyone makes each other look presentable and seamless.” She also explains to each department of the class what the business is today and she definitely expected for both teams to win because they put in a lot of hard work and time into these concepts.

Lastly, the most exciting part about creating these concepts for Diaz is, “Bringing the concepts to life and treating the business plans like a real company and turning nothing into something big.” Diaz thanks her team for putting time and effort into these concepts.

 COO of the Eco Depot, Chloe Roger’s explains that, “It is exciting being able to come back and continue the legacy from last year and compete again.” Roger is Chief Operating Officer of the Eco Depot and she got this position working with CEO’s of the group. Roger’s position is to make sure everyone is coherent with the team and everyone is working together to achieve their goals. 

The concept of the Eco Depot is a company focusing on composting and making sure that people are being educated on compost. Roger’s states that their idea behind this concept was, “Noticing issues around this campus with food being wasted during lunch and trying to look into composting, in hopes of finding better ways to dilute the food waste.” Rogers expresses that the goal for this concept is to, “Educate and get people to learn real world concepts, to better prepare them for the real world.”