Cal State San Bernardino’s Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE) will host 1,200 high school students from Arizona, California and Oregon as part of the Virtual Enterprise Regional Tradeshow and Competition on March 10.

The Virtual Enterprise International (VE) is an educational nonprofit organization that transforms students through authentic business experiences that prepare them for fulfilling, financially secure futures. In the high school program, students conceive, create and then operate a company as a class, and trade with 500 other U.S. VE firms. Students assume their firm’s organizational roles in various company departments and buy/sell through the VE banking system and VE marketplace.

The IECE has sponsored the VE Regional Tradeshow and Competition program annually since 2018, but this will be the first time the program has been held at Cal State San Bernardino. Previous programs have been held at the Pasadena Convention Center. The event will be held at the Santos Manuel Student Union North and South from 7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

The VE program fits perfectly with the university’s programs in entrepreneurship, said Mike Stull, a professor of entrepreneurship and director of the IECE and the CSUSB School of Entrepreneurship.

“By hosting the VE Tradeshow and Competition program here on campus, we want to introduce these amazing budding entrepreneurs to the incredible benefits that higher education can offer in entrepreneurship to help develop new ideas, innovation and efficiency,” said Stull. “Our education programs’ goals are to foster an entrepreneurial mindset and philosophy of ‘Think Like An Owner!™’ by developing creative, innovative individuals who can identify local and global problems and create innovative solutions,”

According to its website, VE has transformed the lives of 200,000+ young people since 1996 through real business experiences that prepare them for their futures. VE does this by partnering with schools, school districts and businesses across the United States to create educational pathways that align career education and work-based learning with academic standards-based education.

The Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship, housed in the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Publica Administration at Cal State San Bernardino, is the only organization in the Inland Empire dedicated to providing innovative programs and educational resources to entrepreneurs and small business owners. The School of Entrepreneurship is the first and only school dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship at the post-secondary level in California, and one of less than 20 such entities in the nation