22 March 2024
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Wichita State University partnered with a traveling gaming company to host the Venture Valley Collegiate Cup to teach college students how to be entrepreneurs.
Venture Valley is a game where players start a business, then set wages and product prices and develop marketing.
“We just want students to kind of get their toes wet into the world of entrepreneurship. We want them to kind of experience what, you know kind of different aspects of business building,” said Jon Chen, the Marketing and Events Manager at Venture Valley and the Singleton Foundation. “We want to inspire entrepreneurs. We want to let them know it’s not that scary to start a business, right? It’s still something that’s possible, and we want them to kind of get exposed into maybe what that entails.”
The Venture Valley Collegiate Cup is a tournament series that travels the nation, giving students and campuses a chance to play their game, earn entrepreneurship, and win prizes. The competition has been held for the past two years.
“This is pretty much a multiplayer competition, so each player is competing with others in the lobby. There are certain matched goals that players are kind of competing towards when they start the game,” said Chen. “So there’s different goals that these players are kind of working towards and those are the kind of metrics that they’re judged on.”
Chen says the game helps students stay in their comfort zone while learning.
“We feel that there’s a lot of different ways to learn, and one of the ways can be through a game. We want to meet students where they are most comfortable in front of, which is a screen,” he said.
The creator of the most successful business goes home with $2,000.
“Hopefully, they are inspired to be an entrepreneur or maybe start a business one day, and you know, hopefully, the cash prize can jump-start that career,” said Chen.